ok, i´m posting this again. dodgy guatemalan internet connections, and rainy season power outages have combined to send several of my recent messages and the last post off into the abyss. the short news is that i´ve got my ticket and i´ll be in chicago on the 3rd of august.
the details are that i left the casa in a violent thunder and lightning storm this past saturday, with all the brave volunteers who said the despedida was more important than getting struck by lightning. it was a great night that i wished could have gone on forever.
i´m now in san pedro la laguna on lago de atitlán, a huge volcanic crater that has filled in with a gorgeous lake. there are some active volcanoes that surround the lake, and you can hike up and roast marshmallows on the flowing lava. not sure if i can afford to do it - it´s not very expensive but i´m definitely at the end of my funds. i head to chichicastenango to visit the gigantic market there, then back to the lake if i´m not in love with chichi, with my flight from the city on sunday night.
feeling lonely here, at bit at loose ends and wishing i had a buddy. not wishing i was in chicago really, but excited to be there next week.
my phone will be working hopefully right away.
much love from guatemala!
s
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
casa video
not sure if this posted last time - the electricity in town went out everywhere during a thunderstorm... and it´s rainy season here so it´s happening between 3 and 5 times a week...
it´s surely not professional but it does give a pretty good idea of where i´ve been living the last 6 months
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzQq0oqN6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dEXly-fm-w
paz a tí
s
it´s surely not professional but it does give a pretty good idea of where i´ve been living the last 6 months
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykzQq0oqN6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dEXly-fm-w
paz a tí
s
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
the jungle´s wrath and all that good stuff
buenas tardes a todos!
i´m in town for a short couple of hours...
after my chicago trip, i returned to the casa motivated and very happy to be back. i really like life here, living in the jungle with all the exciting moments it produces in a day, and the sense of community that comes from a small group of people working on the same project. i also returned with some non-refrigeration salami - one of my favorite foods. appparently "no refrigeration necessary" means "in all places except the jungle." three of the 6 of us who ate my special treat of poisonous sausage got sick, and appropriately, i got the worst of it. we speak very frankly of casa guatemala ailments but i´ll spare my few readers the gory details. suffice to say that i was very unwell on the morning of a scheduled descanso with dear friend bart from australia - orientador to little boys. we had planned an ultra-relaxing descanso of 4 days (i took a previous 4 day descanso to tikal, some of the most impressive mayan ruins in the world, found in norhtern guatemalan state of peten). we pushed back our descanso by 2 days and headed straight for finca tatin, a hidden hostel on a tributary of the rio dulce closer to the carribean. it was a fabulous jungle lodge with hammocks everywhere, self-serve refrigerator on an honor system, and family dinner that was wonderful. aka, the perfect place to be quiet and do nothing all day. we read, listened to music, i taught bart scrabble (and won by 60 points - thanks gramma!), had calimocho (spanish high school drink of coca cola and cheap red wine - sounds terrible but is utterly charming and delightful after the first sip). decided to stay an extra day and be even more relaxed, which we were. the day of our planned kayak to livingston on the coast, about 2 and a half hours by arms, my right eye was the size of a base-ball, throbbing our of my socket, and painful to beat the band. my partner chini, nurse, noticed it was red before i left and gave me drops that i applied religiously, but this conjunctivitis was jungle-born and needed to be tamed with more than a week of rest, new drops, and nasty cream. we trudged on to livingston anyway, visiting a health center for more drops. slept most of that day, woke to be taken to an absolutely fabulous "tapado", the typical dish of livingston, one of the homes of garífuna culture. in 1802 a slave ship from africa capsized in the sea off the coast of honduras. the special blend of african, carribean, and ladino cultures populated the coasts of honduras, our small coast of guatemala, and belize. tapado is a coconut based soup of green plantains, onions, garlic, a whole fish, crabs, shrimp, and any other ingredients that are readily available. we also had "flitas", a mash of green plantains and garlic fried to a perfect street-food perfection, with fresh squeezed lime.
the descanso to tikal was breath-taking and a lot of good fun as it was the exit of niñas pequeñas orientadora andrea from england. the temples were massive and i´ve got some great pictures of these monuments of strength meant to attract followers to the city-state. contary to popular belief there are no bodies buried inside, as a guide explained in a patient if slightly annoyed, voice. the buildings, constructed in a mostly lime-stone area, where water is absorbed by land that can´t be cultivated, and crumbles under much weight. they made a cement-like mix that bonded well with the lime-stone and that is what fills these monstrous pyramids. very powerful rulers were buried as close as possible to their thrones.
izabela from brazil, replacing andrea, came and met me for a walk to an unexcavated temple in san marcos, the town across from the island of flores, where we stayed. it´s so overgrown it just seems like a hill, but we met some arheaologists who were very geeked about the shape of the hill which looked like homes and such, to their trained eyes. izabela and i had a great time getting lost in spectaculary beautiful woods which underscored that we live in the jungle, not the woods. it felt like michigan.
i´m back at the casa for another 25 days or so, depending on how training with the next girl goes. chini is going to be leaving (with susi, the other fabulous nurse from españa) around the same time. we´ve (along with mi primera esposita, jasmine) made some great progress with the girls and we want to make sure that they adjust to the new orientadora well, and that she is able to carry on where we leave off. i´m in a state of disbelief that i´ve been here 5 months, and not feeling ready to go home. certainly feeling like there is more to be done with our girls, and not wanting to abandon them when they´ve become better, more respectful, more responsible, more considerate people. the bank account is dicatating otherwise, as is real-life, i suppose.
the whole concept of real-life is a term i´m coming to dislike more and more. what could be more real than seeing a girl smile for the first time in 3 months. the girl with the worst behavior asking me why i´m here, listening, and maybe actually understanding. i´ve not gotten emotionally connected to the degree i could have, knowing that it would be too hard to leave. but we live together and our daily lives are linked and it´s hard no matter what. i like them.
we´ve been without water or electricity for the last 5 days, so life has certainly been harder than normal. we´re washing in the dirty, contaminated river - nerve-wracking with this crazy eye infection - and brining semi-clean water from the well behind the carpenteria. i can do without electricity, though we still get a couple of battery generated hours split between morning and night, but the water is a real trial given that the river is no prize. i now know that i could have handled living in times before running water and electricity, but in those times we hadn´t destroyed all of our natural sources of water. this is different, and scary. to see water that i know we and our neighbors have turned to poison, and then wash my body in it, literally makes me want to run in the opposite direction, except there are no other options. it´s a small-scale example of the planet, and that terrifies me.
maybe this eye infection, food poisoning, and lack of water will help me to get motivated to come home! at least my eye was too bad to read at night with a light, so i didn´t need to charge it! the suasage tasted damn good before it made me sick like the devil!
there are always silver linings to be found when publishing for friends and family - thanks for reading and keeping me going!
besitos y paz a tí
s
i´m in town for a short couple of hours...
after my chicago trip, i returned to the casa motivated and very happy to be back. i really like life here, living in the jungle with all the exciting moments it produces in a day, and the sense of community that comes from a small group of people working on the same project. i also returned with some non-refrigeration salami - one of my favorite foods. appparently "no refrigeration necessary" means "in all places except the jungle." three of the 6 of us who ate my special treat of poisonous sausage got sick, and appropriately, i got the worst of it. we speak very frankly of casa guatemala ailments but i´ll spare my few readers the gory details. suffice to say that i was very unwell on the morning of a scheduled descanso with dear friend bart from australia - orientador to little boys. we had planned an ultra-relaxing descanso of 4 days (i took a previous 4 day descanso to tikal, some of the most impressive mayan ruins in the world, found in norhtern guatemalan state of peten). we pushed back our descanso by 2 days and headed straight for finca tatin, a hidden hostel on a tributary of the rio dulce closer to the carribean. it was a fabulous jungle lodge with hammocks everywhere, self-serve refrigerator on an honor system, and family dinner that was wonderful. aka, the perfect place to be quiet and do nothing all day. we read, listened to music, i taught bart scrabble (and won by 60 points - thanks gramma!), had calimocho (spanish high school drink of coca cola and cheap red wine - sounds terrible but is utterly charming and delightful after the first sip). decided to stay an extra day and be even more relaxed, which we were. the day of our planned kayak to livingston on the coast, about 2 and a half hours by arms, my right eye was the size of a base-ball, throbbing our of my socket, and painful to beat the band. my partner chini, nurse, noticed it was red before i left and gave me drops that i applied religiously, but this conjunctivitis was jungle-born and needed to be tamed with more than a week of rest, new drops, and nasty cream. we trudged on to livingston anyway, visiting a health center for more drops. slept most of that day, woke to be taken to an absolutely fabulous "tapado", the typical dish of livingston, one of the homes of garífuna culture. in 1802 a slave ship from africa capsized in the sea off the coast of honduras. the special blend of african, carribean, and ladino cultures populated the coasts of honduras, our small coast of guatemala, and belize. tapado is a coconut based soup of green plantains, onions, garlic, a whole fish, crabs, shrimp, and any other ingredients that are readily available. we also had "flitas", a mash of green plantains and garlic fried to a perfect street-food perfection, with fresh squeezed lime.
the descanso to tikal was breath-taking and a lot of good fun as it was the exit of niñas pequeñas orientadora andrea from england. the temples were massive and i´ve got some great pictures of these monuments of strength meant to attract followers to the city-state. contary to popular belief there are no bodies buried inside, as a guide explained in a patient if slightly annoyed, voice. the buildings, constructed in a mostly lime-stone area, where water is absorbed by land that can´t be cultivated, and crumbles under much weight. they made a cement-like mix that bonded well with the lime-stone and that is what fills these monstrous pyramids. very powerful rulers were buried as close as possible to their thrones.
izabela from brazil, replacing andrea, came and met me for a walk to an unexcavated temple in san marcos, the town across from the island of flores, where we stayed. it´s so overgrown it just seems like a hill, but we met some arheaologists who were very geeked about the shape of the hill which looked like homes and such, to their trained eyes. izabela and i had a great time getting lost in spectaculary beautiful woods which underscored that we live in the jungle, not the woods. it felt like michigan.
i´m back at the casa for another 25 days or so, depending on how training with the next girl goes. chini is going to be leaving (with susi, the other fabulous nurse from españa) around the same time. we´ve (along with mi primera esposita, jasmine) made some great progress with the girls and we want to make sure that they adjust to the new orientadora well, and that she is able to carry on where we leave off. i´m in a state of disbelief that i´ve been here 5 months, and not feeling ready to go home. certainly feeling like there is more to be done with our girls, and not wanting to abandon them when they´ve become better, more respectful, more responsible, more considerate people. the bank account is dicatating otherwise, as is real-life, i suppose.
the whole concept of real-life is a term i´m coming to dislike more and more. what could be more real than seeing a girl smile for the first time in 3 months. the girl with the worst behavior asking me why i´m here, listening, and maybe actually understanding. i´ve not gotten emotionally connected to the degree i could have, knowing that it would be too hard to leave. but we live together and our daily lives are linked and it´s hard no matter what. i like them.
we´ve been without water or electricity for the last 5 days, so life has certainly been harder than normal. we´re washing in the dirty, contaminated river - nerve-wracking with this crazy eye infection - and brining semi-clean water from the well behind the carpenteria. i can do without electricity, though we still get a couple of battery generated hours split between morning and night, but the water is a real trial given that the river is no prize. i now know that i could have handled living in times before running water and electricity, but in those times we hadn´t destroyed all of our natural sources of water. this is different, and scary. to see water that i know we and our neighbors have turned to poison, and then wash my body in it, literally makes me want to run in the opposite direction, except there are no other options. it´s a small-scale example of the planet, and that terrifies me.
maybe this eye infection, food poisoning, and lack of water will help me to get motivated to come home! at least my eye was too bad to read at night with a light, so i didn´t need to charge it! the suasage tasted damn good before it made me sick like the devil!
there are always silver linings to be found when publishing for friends and family - thanks for reading and keeping me going!
besitos y paz a tí
s
Thursday, May 28, 2009
first, everything here is fine!
we had an earthquake last night in case our news didn't reach the states. it was my first but, there was no moment of "what the heck is going on?" i was in bed and woke up just before 2:30 a.m. to my bed shaking like crazy. i knew it was an earthquake but felt it stopping so stayed in bed another minute. (that also means that my super-human power to sleep was in full effect, because i didn't wake up for what everyone says felt like a very long first tremor.) then the a second tremor started and the girls started screaming and crying. i yanked my mosquito net up from under my matress and tried to jelly-walk to the door frame of my bathroom, closer to the outside wall of the building than my room entrance. it felt just like the room in fun-houses where the floor panels move in opposite directions and up and down. i kept screaming "esta bien, chicas, tranquila, todo bien, van a las puertas y quedan!" (it's ok, girls, calm down, everything's ok, go to the doors and stay!) it was long enough that i had time to think about, 1, how molly had had so many earthquakes living in japan so everything would be fine cuz it didn't feel too bad, 2, worry about girls falling out of their beds, 3, wonder at the coincidence that earlier that day i had been thinking about the major earthquake they had in 1999 that devasted casa guatemala, 4, that i better get some pants on cuz we were about to be seeing a lot of people. most of the girls were howling too much to get out of their bunk beds and all was still before we actually headed out of the house. the girls were a bit panicked running out and were caught by our on-site directora seno bea, who instructed them all on where to go... which was great because i didn't know. we've never had any kind of disaster training or information about what to do for what kind of emergency - though i'm sure it will be a hot topic at the meeting tonight.
i grabbed my extra flashlight, paracetamol (our pain killer of choice), a bottle of water and put one of my girls to walk with the little girls. we all went to the soccer field and did second and third head counts (or maybe that's just me...) seno bea sent her brother back with me to the house to get a shirt for one of my girls who ran out with just a skirt on! we were told to wait for a half an hour to make sure there were no more after-shocks, while seno bea and her brothers went to inspect the houses and make a plan for the rest of the night. there apparently were after-shocks that we didn't feel up at the campo, but that were felt back at our houses. the boys house over the river (literally) got quite a dose of water from the waves, and some superficial damage. casa de las ninas is fine, so little girls came up and camped out on our common-room floor, while the boys sat around in the downstairs area - and didn't sleep at all, though of course i fell right to sleep again...
the bbc reported a 7.1 on the richter scale, with an epicenter straight east of our part of guatemala, 36 miles north of roatan, honduras. the threat of tsunami has passed and only one death has been reported. our houses are built on stilts because we're so close to the river, and they definitely absorbed a lot of the shock from the way our huge orange house was swaying to and fro. it really did feel like a ride at a carnival. those stilts probably gave us a better ride than if we were connected to the ground, but whatever our connection, it was completely fascinating and powerful to feel the earth moving, and everything else around us as well. i felt how all of our physical surroundings all go back to the fact that we are essentially just moving plants, rooted to the ground and dependent on everything that it gives and takes and does to us. cool stuff, especially because there was only one casualty, and minimal damage.
hard to top that kind of news, so a quick update since the last blog. i went to the states for an extended break to watch my wonderful friend jessica marry her wonderful man josh. it was a fabulous celebration of these two people that i adore, and a really nice display of their love and the great ways that they balance each other out. then back to chicago with a ride from jeff and molly who came down to lousiville, kentucky to help toast the newlyweds. a nice dinner with mom for mother's day my first night back in the city, a memorable dinner with mom, her dear friend sandy, and my dear friend ashly at bistro campagne - marrow bones, pate, soft shell crab, beautifully done pork two-ways, polenta and a nice red wine. celebrated my nephew ethan's 9th birthday! with his sis maia who's also growing up fast, michelle, sister-in-law, whose so good at what she does the economy can't keep people from booking her design services, and had a great time hanging out with my brother and his band. ballet chicago put on a fabulous spring repertory performance, with dancers looking top-notch, arabesques miraculously all at 90 degrees (finally!), and a great premiere by the ever-entertaining ted seymour. the blamers (the great band that my friends have formed over a year ago) had a great show at their biggest night to date, sounding tremendous, much tighter, exciting, and awesomely dynamic. it's kindof like watching a puppy grow into it's paws; everybody really rocking their niche in the band and looking like complete strangers - rockstars for real! hooking up with shannon, kate the bod, emily shaw, weibke from germany and the like making it a really special trip. about 5 days before my plane i was feeling anxious and that i ought to be home - guatemala home - and what were my girls doing and were they behaving and was my partner chini ok with all the work alone?
it's been very hot here with no rain and high humidity. panic-inducing-hot. dripping, squishing, squeaking hot. it's so humid that i just noticed my pillow has little black mold spots, as do the vitamins, my toothpaste bag and numerous other things. we've had a nasty virus sweeping through the casa with lots of kids sick with high fever, sore throat, ear and eye infections and general misery. not much we can do for them either, which is the worst part. i've had mommy pangs feeling helpless and responsible for them and just wanting to make it better. the nicest thing i can do is put a cool cloth on their head and tell them they can stay in their sweltering beds.
agriculture class is on and off as the kids' behavior is pretty spotty. one day they're great and we learn a lot, partly lesson plan, partly the things i discover they don't know as we go along. we've been learning about irrigation systems, which has lead to the discovery that while they now know that rivers run to oceans, they didn't know it was because of gravity, or what gravity is. had never heard of it. glad nobody video taped me trying to explain that scientific law in spanish... one major problem is that they don't seem to grasp how to define things. they use the word to define the word and don't seem to be able to describe the thing in question. we spend a lot of time on that because most of the rest of their schooling relies heavily on word for word definitions on tests and they don't actually know what they're talking about. frustrating because they seem to be able to talk talk talk when we don't want them to, and clam up when i ask for an alternate description of "pressure."
we don't have school today, excuse being the earthquake of course, and what if there's another? i wish i had been keeping a log of our days off from school because it's pretty extraordinary. the other day instead of school, every kid 5 years and up was set to hauling rocks a long way from river to farm (huerto, really, where my classroom is for those who saw the video). all day.
casa guatemala is in financial crisis right now, with absolutely no donations coming in and major skimping and selling going on. we had a festival while i was gone to sell all the donated clothes that are new, and we're trying to plan more activities to raise money here on-site. there's a threat that the electricity will be turned off here and at the hotel. the hotel isn't even bringing in money right now, as it's only covering the salaries of the people who keep it running. we're also extremely short staffed at the casa, so that everyone is so over-worked they don't have the energy to help each other. i'm going to spend the afternoon helping put the library back together which totally fell apart during the earthquake, and even that small task i'm dreading.
i've got to get my beans and rice before there aren't any left. mom sent me down with a great load of groceries and nothing has been so good as hershey's chocolate syrup, laughing cow cheese, real peanut butter, and the vacuum-packed parmesan that made the trip well. thanks mom! i'm definitely thinking more about descansos and when i'll be going home on this half of the trip, but i'm sure it's a symptom of being alone with 31 girls... next trip is to tikal! some of the oldest mayan ruins around, and the biggest mayan city ever discovered.
anyway, thanks if you read this whole darn thing, and know that i'm grateful that i have people to share the craziness with.
peace to you
s
we had an earthquake last night in case our news didn't reach the states. it was my first but, there was no moment of "what the heck is going on?" i was in bed and woke up just before 2:30 a.m. to my bed shaking like crazy. i knew it was an earthquake but felt it stopping so stayed in bed another minute. (that also means that my super-human power to sleep was in full effect, because i didn't wake up for what everyone says felt like a very long first tremor.) then the a second tremor started and the girls started screaming and crying. i yanked my mosquito net up from under my matress and tried to jelly-walk to the door frame of my bathroom, closer to the outside wall of the building than my room entrance. it felt just like the room in fun-houses where the floor panels move in opposite directions and up and down. i kept screaming "esta bien, chicas, tranquila, todo bien, van a las puertas y quedan!" (it's ok, girls, calm down, everything's ok, go to the doors and stay!) it was long enough that i had time to think about, 1, how molly had had so many earthquakes living in japan so everything would be fine cuz it didn't feel too bad, 2, worry about girls falling out of their beds, 3, wonder at the coincidence that earlier that day i had been thinking about the major earthquake they had in 1999 that devasted casa guatemala, 4, that i better get some pants on cuz we were about to be seeing a lot of people. most of the girls were howling too much to get out of their bunk beds and all was still before we actually headed out of the house. the girls were a bit panicked running out and were caught by our on-site directora seno bea, who instructed them all on where to go... which was great because i didn't know. we've never had any kind of disaster training or information about what to do for what kind of emergency - though i'm sure it will be a hot topic at the meeting tonight.
i grabbed my extra flashlight, paracetamol (our pain killer of choice), a bottle of water and put one of my girls to walk with the little girls. we all went to the soccer field and did second and third head counts (or maybe that's just me...) seno bea sent her brother back with me to the house to get a shirt for one of my girls who ran out with just a skirt on! we were told to wait for a half an hour to make sure there were no more after-shocks, while seno bea and her brothers went to inspect the houses and make a plan for the rest of the night. there apparently were after-shocks that we didn't feel up at the campo, but that were felt back at our houses. the boys house over the river (literally) got quite a dose of water from the waves, and some superficial damage. casa de las ninas is fine, so little girls came up and camped out on our common-room floor, while the boys sat around in the downstairs area - and didn't sleep at all, though of course i fell right to sleep again...
the bbc reported a 7.1 on the richter scale, with an epicenter straight east of our part of guatemala, 36 miles north of roatan, honduras. the threat of tsunami has passed and only one death has been reported. our houses are built on stilts because we're so close to the river, and they definitely absorbed a lot of the shock from the way our huge orange house was swaying to and fro. it really did feel like a ride at a carnival. those stilts probably gave us a better ride than if we were connected to the ground, but whatever our connection, it was completely fascinating and powerful to feel the earth moving, and everything else around us as well. i felt how all of our physical surroundings all go back to the fact that we are essentially just moving plants, rooted to the ground and dependent on everything that it gives and takes and does to us. cool stuff, especially because there was only one casualty, and minimal damage.
hard to top that kind of news, so a quick update since the last blog. i went to the states for an extended break to watch my wonderful friend jessica marry her wonderful man josh. it was a fabulous celebration of these two people that i adore, and a really nice display of their love and the great ways that they balance each other out. then back to chicago with a ride from jeff and molly who came down to lousiville, kentucky to help toast the newlyweds. a nice dinner with mom for mother's day my first night back in the city, a memorable dinner with mom, her dear friend sandy, and my dear friend ashly at bistro campagne - marrow bones, pate, soft shell crab, beautifully done pork two-ways, polenta and a nice red wine. celebrated my nephew ethan's 9th birthday! with his sis maia who's also growing up fast, michelle, sister-in-law, whose so good at what she does the economy can't keep people from booking her design services, and had a great time hanging out with my brother and his band. ballet chicago put on a fabulous spring repertory performance, with dancers looking top-notch, arabesques miraculously all at 90 degrees (finally!), and a great premiere by the ever-entertaining ted seymour. the blamers (the great band that my friends have formed over a year ago) had a great show at their biggest night to date, sounding tremendous, much tighter, exciting, and awesomely dynamic. it's kindof like watching a puppy grow into it's paws; everybody really rocking their niche in the band and looking like complete strangers - rockstars for real! hooking up with shannon, kate the bod, emily shaw, weibke from germany and the like making it a really special trip. about 5 days before my plane i was feeling anxious and that i ought to be home - guatemala home - and what were my girls doing and were they behaving and was my partner chini ok with all the work alone?
it's been very hot here with no rain and high humidity. panic-inducing-hot. dripping, squishing, squeaking hot. it's so humid that i just noticed my pillow has little black mold spots, as do the vitamins, my toothpaste bag and numerous other things. we've had a nasty virus sweeping through the casa with lots of kids sick with high fever, sore throat, ear and eye infections and general misery. not much we can do for them either, which is the worst part. i've had mommy pangs feeling helpless and responsible for them and just wanting to make it better. the nicest thing i can do is put a cool cloth on their head and tell them they can stay in their sweltering beds.
agriculture class is on and off as the kids' behavior is pretty spotty. one day they're great and we learn a lot, partly lesson plan, partly the things i discover they don't know as we go along. we've been learning about irrigation systems, which has lead to the discovery that while they now know that rivers run to oceans, they didn't know it was because of gravity, or what gravity is. had never heard of it. glad nobody video taped me trying to explain that scientific law in spanish... one major problem is that they don't seem to grasp how to define things. they use the word to define the word and don't seem to be able to describe the thing in question. we spend a lot of time on that because most of the rest of their schooling relies heavily on word for word definitions on tests and they don't actually know what they're talking about. frustrating because they seem to be able to talk talk talk when we don't want them to, and clam up when i ask for an alternate description of "pressure."
we don't have school today, excuse being the earthquake of course, and what if there's another? i wish i had been keeping a log of our days off from school because it's pretty extraordinary. the other day instead of school, every kid 5 years and up was set to hauling rocks a long way from river to farm (huerto, really, where my classroom is for those who saw the video). all day.
casa guatemala is in financial crisis right now, with absolutely no donations coming in and major skimping and selling going on. we had a festival while i was gone to sell all the donated clothes that are new, and we're trying to plan more activities to raise money here on-site. there's a threat that the electricity will be turned off here and at the hotel. the hotel isn't even bringing in money right now, as it's only covering the salaries of the people who keep it running. we're also extremely short staffed at the casa, so that everyone is so over-worked they don't have the energy to help each other. i'm going to spend the afternoon helping put the library back together which totally fell apart during the earthquake, and even that small task i'm dreading.
i've got to get my beans and rice before there aren't any left. mom sent me down with a great load of groceries and nothing has been so good as hershey's chocolate syrup, laughing cow cheese, real peanut butter, and the vacuum-packed parmesan that made the trip well. thanks mom! i'm definitely thinking more about descansos and when i'll be going home on this half of the trip, but i'm sure it's a symptom of being alone with 31 girls... next trip is to tikal! some of the oldest mayan ruins around, and the biggest mayan city ever discovered.
anyway, thanks if you read this whole darn thing, and know that i'm grateful that i have people to share the craziness with.
peace to you
s
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
not all the days are great ones
got a few notes from people commenting on my optimism and commending my ability to ¨stick it out¨and wanted to set the record straight. all is well, and i haven´t committed any malicious crimes, but life aint easy. twice i have written lengthy posts that belie some of the misery that can set in when living in a situation like this. both times the generator gave out before the post was saved - once on the casa computer, and once when all of the electricity in town went out for the entire afternoon - it was well over 100 degrees that day. maybe that was some form of fate stepping in... imagine how rosy i was after that, and not a cold beverage in sight! i often liken it to the jungle - everything here grows bigger and faster, and so do our emotional reactions. the lows feel lower than normal and are just as extreme as the euphoria of the highs. after 28 straight days of work i am tired. it will be 5 weeks without a day off by the time i arrive in chicago and believe me that this is not ideal for me, my partners, or the kids. really ready to come home for a break, some serious hugs, and temporarily escaping the feeling that i can´t get anything done, i don´t make a difference, and these kids will never learn to read well, say please, or be accountable for their actions. those are the real downer moments. also, that i´m not doing anything as well as i can because i´m too tired. and that these kids won´t have consistent vegetables for so much of their childhood that they will be permanently affected.
one of the girls lost a tooth and gave it to my partner chini, also one of our nurses. she forgot to tell me so that i could put a treat under her pillow and take the tooth. they call it the little rat here - no fairies. actually, if she didn´t have her mosquito net it definitely could be rat under her pillow (stacy woke up with a rat biting her toe through her mosquito net the other night...). anyway, she woke up to still find her tooth there. she asked chini if the ratito didn´t want her tooth. she told her no no - it´s because there are so many beds in your room, he couldn´t find you. the girl said, oh good, i thought maybe he didn´t want it because it´s black. her tooth is decayed straight through, with a hole you can see through. the next morning there was a bag hanging on our door so that ratito could make sure we got the treat to her. normally it´s some candy and 1 quetzal - guatemalan money - about 20 cents. i slipped a toothbrush in too...
all my love and thanks for staying in touch with me here on the blog... it means a lot on those inevitable bad days. chicago here i come!
s
one of the girls lost a tooth and gave it to my partner chini, also one of our nurses. she forgot to tell me so that i could put a treat under her pillow and take the tooth. they call it the little rat here - no fairies. actually, if she didn´t have her mosquito net it definitely could be rat under her pillow (stacy woke up with a rat biting her toe through her mosquito net the other night...). anyway, she woke up to still find her tooth there. she asked chini if the ratito didn´t want her tooth. she told her no no - it´s because there are so many beds in your room, he couldn´t find you. the girl said, oh good, i thought maybe he didn´t want it because it´s black. her tooth is decayed straight through, with a hole you can see through. the next morning there was a bag hanging on our door so that ratito could make sure we got the treat to her. normally it´s some candy and 1 quetzal - guatemalan money - about 20 cents. i slipped a toothbrush in too...
all my love and thanks for staying in touch with me here on the blog... it means a lot on those inevitable bad days. chicago here i come!
s
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
our river connects to an ocean
It´s ridiculous how much has happened since the last time i managed to find time to blog.
First, the big news: i´m the new agriculture teacher. A large part of my initial interest in casa guatemala was to live more sustainably and closer to the land. I wanted to learn about agriculture and farming by doing it, not reading about it. Alas, that has not been the case. With the hours of my orientation position there´s not much energy left for hanging out with the guys in the farm and observing their self-taught or family-learned methods. However, seño angie was dead-set on having an agriculture teacher; bravo. No one else was interested except me, so they made me an offer i couldn´t refuse: work two jobs for free, and we´ll give you beans and rice! Hahaha, that´s casa humor, not bitterness! I´m loving being in a classroom again, and finding that the teaching gig at my beloved Ballet Chicago is more than a love of ballet.
That said, the kids are a far cry from the enthusiastic, well-behaved, self-disciplined kids of SBC. I´ve spent all of my classes trying to work on rules, classroom behavior and showing them that i´m serious about discipline. After witnessing the classes of other volunteers, i´m determined not to let them get away with disrespectful behavior.
I wasn´t able to get any information or materials prior to my first class so i´ve been feeling it out as i go. We reviewed very basic parts of the plant and the basic process of photosynthesis that they had been learning for a couple of weeks with a guatemalan teacher.
Volunteer Hani from Denmark-Finland found me a science text with a couple chapters on ecosystems and pollution, although they´re a bit ahead of the learning curve here. I´ve also got a packet from Oxfam on building an irrigation system. Volunteer Bob, so dear to my heart, was here working on drip irrigation for a couple of months so this will tie in nicely with what we´ve actually got. I´m taking my time with the kids. When we come across words they don´t know, i give examples, ask for the common factors in the examples, ask for their examples, come up with our own definition, look it up in a spanish dictionary, and talk about how that definition is better or worse than our own. We spend the beginning of the next class reviewing all of those things.
Today, we reviewed contamination and began reading the Oxfam material on irrigation.
On Sunday, all of casa guatemala was taken to Fronteras, the town in Rio Dulce across the bridge from hotel backpackers. It was their first time away from the casa since sometime before christmas. We walked in a parade with banners to advertise the fruits and vegetables that we grow. (It was a very long, hot, 4 hour walk in the sun that took so long there was no time for the kids to do any of the fun things at the fair. All of the volunteers were upset that the kids didn´t get to ride the ferris wheel, or zipper, or tilt-a-whirl, so imagine how sad the kids were. The teachers told them we would come back this week to do all of that, and then we heard from higher up that that was too much time away from school classes, and the kids were super let down.) The current crop is a whole lot of sandía – watermelon. We have it for each snack and watermelon juice for each beverage. (It´s not the most nutritionally beneficial fruit but it fetches a high price in town.) one of our banners said: no contamine el río. Hence, our lesson on contamination. I explained about the organization of Oxfam, and how they have a project on Lago de Izabal, which feeds into Rio Dulce. Oxfam is trying to prevent some american companies from drilling through the middle of the lake, and kicking the indigenous people out of the area. Finally something they had some interest in! More than half of each of my classes is Mayan and most of those speak Que´qchi as their first language. (an amazing language to listen to with sounds like choc, bu, pop. Those are all very common last names, in fact.) We talked about how drilling could contaminate the lake, which connects to our river. From there, however, they didn´t know where the river went. So we spent time talking about how rivers generally connect to oceans, and that the ocean is not far from where we live! This was news to them.
Once we get going, and i can spend more time teaching and less waiting for them to be quiet or sending them out of the classroom, we will be learning about root systems by growing coleus plant cuttings. Everyone has been saving plastic bottles for the class and it´s nice to know that they weren´t burned. Ask my class, they´ll tell you that contaminates the air, and in turn the earth and the water... i contacted my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Giles, who did an awesome year-long project with us on horticulutre and the environment. He graciously sent me some ideas and will hopefully send some more. One of his projects is seed germination in plastic bags with a bit of dirt and water, breath in some carbon dioxide and watch your greenhouse grow! Now all the voluteers are saving plastic bags too!
I took a trip to Semuc Champey, one of the most beautiful places in Guatemala. Had a great time swimming in the limestone pools, dining on all-you-can-eat buffet, tubing slowly (no danger!) down the river, watching a mass exodus of bats from a cave at sunset, and showing off Rio Dulce to some travelers.
Semana Santa, holy week, was filled with special activities, as we had only the kids without families for the most part. The first three days were special seminars on guatemalan identity, personal hygiene, self-reliance, etc. The people who conducted the seminars were really great with the kids on some things, then shied away from other important topics, like boy-girl relationships and how to avoid having babies. They gave the kids a couple hundred pounds of candy - plastic that i´m still picking up every time i walk from one end of the casa to the other. We had a special fish dinner, smores, a dance party, manicure-pedicure for the girls, etc. All in all, the kids had a pretty great time, and i finally got to know some of our most difficult girls, as they let their guard down with fewer girls in the house. The best part is that those relationships have mostly remained intact even with the return of girls with families.
I´ll be coming home to chicago, my favorite town! from may 10 to 20th. I´ve got the wedding of Jess and Josh in Louisville just before that – so excited to see these great people marry each other, and so proud to be one of her bridesmaids! Also, Ballet Chicago´s Spring Repertory program is the weekend of the 15th, with a new ballet by Ted Seymour, long-time dancer friend, and i´ll definitely be there. Balletchicago.org. The other venue where you´re sure to catch me is Martyr´s on Saturday the 16th, for the Blamers headliner show! This is gonna be a big one so come show you´re support!
I´ll be at about 5 weeks of work by then so i´ll plan on taking a short 3 day trip to livingston on the caribbean – where our river meets the ocean... to eat and relax. It´s uncanny how you can see people´s lights burn out as they get close to three weeks of work without a break, it never fails. For me it starts with the food. Then my patience with the girls starts to go, then my patience with everyone around me. I started skipping meals in the comedor yesterday officially, and making something up at the volunteer house. I can´t wait to bring good food from home back here. I miss hershey´s syrup! I´ll be on a serious search for non-refrigerated foods to bring back.
Hope this finds everyone well. Time down here has flown, but when i think of all the people i miss it seems like it´s been years. We talk a lot about how we feel like we live in a bubble, like some piece of fiction that requires a time-machine and a very large needle to pop it and get you home. I´m sorry if i´ve missed birthdays or important news, but know that i´m thinking of all of you with love.
Peace to you
s
First, the big news: i´m the new agriculture teacher. A large part of my initial interest in casa guatemala was to live more sustainably and closer to the land. I wanted to learn about agriculture and farming by doing it, not reading about it. Alas, that has not been the case. With the hours of my orientation position there´s not much energy left for hanging out with the guys in the farm and observing their self-taught or family-learned methods. However, seño angie was dead-set on having an agriculture teacher; bravo. No one else was interested except me, so they made me an offer i couldn´t refuse: work two jobs for free, and we´ll give you beans and rice! Hahaha, that´s casa humor, not bitterness! I´m loving being in a classroom again, and finding that the teaching gig at my beloved Ballet Chicago is more than a love of ballet.
That said, the kids are a far cry from the enthusiastic, well-behaved, self-disciplined kids of SBC. I´ve spent all of my classes trying to work on rules, classroom behavior and showing them that i´m serious about discipline. After witnessing the classes of other volunteers, i´m determined not to let them get away with disrespectful behavior.
I wasn´t able to get any information or materials prior to my first class so i´ve been feeling it out as i go. We reviewed very basic parts of the plant and the basic process of photosynthesis that they had been learning for a couple of weeks with a guatemalan teacher.
Volunteer Hani from Denmark-Finland found me a science text with a couple chapters on ecosystems and pollution, although they´re a bit ahead of the learning curve here. I´ve also got a packet from Oxfam on building an irrigation system. Volunteer Bob, so dear to my heart, was here working on drip irrigation for a couple of months so this will tie in nicely with what we´ve actually got. I´m taking my time with the kids. When we come across words they don´t know, i give examples, ask for the common factors in the examples, ask for their examples, come up with our own definition, look it up in a spanish dictionary, and talk about how that definition is better or worse than our own. We spend the beginning of the next class reviewing all of those things.
Today, we reviewed contamination and began reading the Oxfam material on irrigation.
On Sunday, all of casa guatemala was taken to Fronteras, the town in Rio Dulce across the bridge from hotel backpackers. It was their first time away from the casa since sometime before christmas. We walked in a parade with banners to advertise the fruits and vegetables that we grow. (It was a very long, hot, 4 hour walk in the sun that took so long there was no time for the kids to do any of the fun things at the fair. All of the volunteers were upset that the kids didn´t get to ride the ferris wheel, or zipper, or tilt-a-whirl, so imagine how sad the kids were. The teachers told them we would come back this week to do all of that, and then we heard from higher up that that was too much time away from school classes, and the kids were super let down.) The current crop is a whole lot of sandía – watermelon. We have it for each snack and watermelon juice for each beverage. (It´s not the most nutritionally beneficial fruit but it fetches a high price in town.) one of our banners said: no contamine el río. Hence, our lesson on contamination. I explained about the organization of Oxfam, and how they have a project on Lago de Izabal, which feeds into Rio Dulce. Oxfam is trying to prevent some american companies from drilling through the middle of the lake, and kicking the indigenous people out of the area. Finally something they had some interest in! More than half of each of my classes is Mayan and most of those speak Que´qchi as their first language. (an amazing language to listen to with sounds like choc, bu, pop. Those are all very common last names, in fact.) We talked about how drilling could contaminate the lake, which connects to our river. From there, however, they didn´t know where the river went. So we spent time talking about how rivers generally connect to oceans, and that the ocean is not far from where we live! This was news to them.
Once we get going, and i can spend more time teaching and less waiting for them to be quiet or sending them out of the classroom, we will be learning about root systems by growing coleus plant cuttings. Everyone has been saving plastic bottles for the class and it´s nice to know that they weren´t burned. Ask my class, they´ll tell you that contaminates the air, and in turn the earth and the water... i contacted my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Giles, who did an awesome year-long project with us on horticulutre and the environment. He graciously sent me some ideas and will hopefully send some more. One of his projects is seed germination in plastic bags with a bit of dirt and water, breath in some carbon dioxide and watch your greenhouse grow! Now all the voluteers are saving plastic bags too!
I took a trip to Semuc Champey, one of the most beautiful places in Guatemala. Had a great time swimming in the limestone pools, dining on all-you-can-eat buffet, tubing slowly (no danger!) down the river, watching a mass exodus of bats from a cave at sunset, and showing off Rio Dulce to some travelers.
Semana Santa, holy week, was filled with special activities, as we had only the kids without families for the most part. The first three days were special seminars on guatemalan identity, personal hygiene, self-reliance, etc. The people who conducted the seminars were really great with the kids on some things, then shied away from other important topics, like boy-girl relationships and how to avoid having babies. They gave the kids a couple hundred pounds of candy - plastic that i´m still picking up every time i walk from one end of the casa to the other. We had a special fish dinner, smores, a dance party, manicure-pedicure for the girls, etc. All in all, the kids had a pretty great time, and i finally got to know some of our most difficult girls, as they let their guard down with fewer girls in the house. The best part is that those relationships have mostly remained intact even with the return of girls with families.
I´ll be coming home to chicago, my favorite town! from may 10 to 20th. I´ve got the wedding of Jess and Josh in Louisville just before that – so excited to see these great people marry each other, and so proud to be one of her bridesmaids! Also, Ballet Chicago´s Spring Repertory program is the weekend of the 15th, with a new ballet by Ted Seymour, long-time dancer friend, and i´ll definitely be there. Balletchicago.org. The other venue where you´re sure to catch me is Martyr´s on Saturday the 16th, for the Blamers headliner show! This is gonna be a big one so come show you´re support!
I´ll be at about 5 weeks of work by then so i´ll plan on taking a short 3 day trip to livingston on the caribbean – where our river meets the ocean... to eat and relax. It´s uncanny how you can see people´s lights burn out as they get close to three weeks of work without a break, it never fails. For me it starts with the food. Then my patience with the girls starts to go, then my patience with everyone around me. I started skipping meals in the comedor yesterday officially, and making something up at the volunteer house. I can´t wait to bring good food from home back here. I miss hershey´s syrup! I´ll be on a serious search for non-refrigerated foods to bring back.
Hope this finds everyone well. Time down here has flown, but when i think of all the people i miss it seems like it´s been years. We talk a lot about how we feel like we live in a bubble, like some piece of fiction that requires a time-machine and a very large needle to pop it and get you home. I´m sorry if i´ve missed birthdays or important news, but know that i´m thinking of all of you with love.
Peace to you
s
Friday, March 27, 2009
this is waaaaay better than tv
just a quick post since i´ve not written for over a month! time really flies down here and when i´ve had computer time i´ve tried to get pictures downloaded to the blog. after 45 minutes it poops out at the last minute, very fustrating. the first moments that come to mind are environmental. i´m loving living in the jungle and there´s no way to forget it - from cows politely nosing me off the path, to the giant snake that lives in the kitchen, to those darn howler monkeys starting up at 4 am. los monos son mui normal, pero todavia, cada tiempo que los vemos es un momento especial. my spanish is coming along, though i make lots of mistakes. i have chini and jasmine, the two other orientadoras for ninas grandes to correct me, and chini and i have a daily swap of words and pronunciation. so, back to those moments i´d like to share... i sat on the dock the other night during our hour of free time from 6:30 to 7:30 when the girls have activities with the other volunteers before bed. there is a great big white neon light. staring up at the stars, millions by the way, tiny bugs caught the light and looked like shooting stars. something kept flying by but i didn´t realize i had seen it until it was gone. after 4 passes i realized it was a bat. we´ve got lots of bats and they like to live under our house but it never gets old. it did it´s circular flight pattern getting closer and closer to me until it was within 4 feet every time it passed me. i looked over toward the light and the river below was alive with plop plop sounds. instead of something falling into the river, it was fish jumping into the air to eat the bugs that the light attracts. the image was very cool and another nice river-life moment.
i´ve begun working in the farm and am excited about spending more time there - though it is hot and sunny like nothing else. bob from minnesota just left us for home and i´ll be picking up some of his projects. he was working on installing drip irrigation in several zones of the farm - right now growing cucumbers, watermelons, and shortly replacing the green beans in the green house with tomatoes. also, seño bea, the on-site director of casa guatemala is going to teach me how to rejuvinate the worm farm. she used to be in charge of the agriculture and livestock aspects of the project, and now that she is responsible for the whole place she doesn´t have the time to focus on the farm. change is hard though, and i´m sure i have many battles ahead of me. for instance, after installing so many drip lines we found the (lazy) farm workers watering right over the drip lines by hand. watering by hand tends to soak the soil and the water only reaches an inch or two below, while most beneficial is an 8 inch penetration so that the roots are fed. this is the point of the new drip system... ideally we should only need the irrigation to run twice a week. if we get more rain or it´s especially dry and hot, then we increase the hours that the pump is on, rather than adding more days. i looooove learning about the farm.
just heard that we can hitch a bus in a half hour rather than walking across town so i´ve got to go. i´m in coban right now, travelling solo, which of course, is never alone. met a nice guy from germany and we have the same itinerary and now we´ve picked up a wonderful spanish and american couple so we´re all heading to lanquin and semuc champey together. it´s supposed to be the most beautiful place in all guatemala and we´re all going out of obligation but i´m pretty sure it will be spectacular. i´ll be there for a couple days and then head back to the rio dulce, stop at ak tenemit, a mayan village and school with 12 grades and a graduating class of 90! the study mostly community organizing for maya and maya trades and crafts. then on to livingston on the carribean coast of the river for a couple days with claudine from south africa whose descanso overlaps with mine. the 4th through the 13th is semana santa - a very big deal holy week with parties and family time. that means that we only have around 50 kids - the ones without family. we´re preparing many activities and i think we´ll have a nice meal at some point too.
haven´t been eating well at home obviously, so this descanco is about food. can´t wait to get some soon...
peace and love to all, te extraño!
s
i´ve begun working in the farm and am excited about spending more time there - though it is hot and sunny like nothing else. bob from minnesota just left us for home and i´ll be picking up some of his projects. he was working on installing drip irrigation in several zones of the farm - right now growing cucumbers, watermelons, and shortly replacing the green beans in the green house with tomatoes. also, seño bea, the on-site director of casa guatemala is going to teach me how to rejuvinate the worm farm. she used to be in charge of the agriculture and livestock aspects of the project, and now that she is responsible for the whole place she doesn´t have the time to focus on the farm. change is hard though, and i´m sure i have many battles ahead of me. for instance, after installing so many drip lines we found the (lazy) farm workers watering right over the drip lines by hand. watering by hand tends to soak the soil and the water only reaches an inch or two below, while most beneficial is an 8 inch penetration so that the roots are fed. this is the point of the new drip system... ideally we should only need the irrigation to run twice a week. if we get more rain or it´s especially dry and hot, then we increase the hours that the pump is on, rather than adding more days. i looooove learning about the farm.
just heard that we can hitch a bus in a half hour rather than walking across town so i´ve got to go. i´m in coban right now, travelling solo, which of course, is never alone. met a nice guy from germany and we have the same itinerary and now we´ve picked up a wonderful spanish and american couple so we´re all heading to lanquin and semuc champey together. it´s supposed to be the most beautiful place in all guatemala and we´re all going out of obligation but i´m pretty sure it will be spectacular. i´ll be there for a couple days and then head back to the rio dulce, stop at ak tenemit, a mayan village and school with 12 grades and a graduating class of 90! the study mostly community organizing for maya and maya trades and crafts. then on to livingston on the carribean coast of the river for a couple days with claudine from south africa whose descanso overlaps with mine. the 4th through the 13th is semana santa - a very big deal holy week with parties and family time. that means that we only have around 50 kids - the ones without family. we´re preparing many activities and i think we´ll have a nice meal at some point too.
haven´t been eating well at home obviously, so this descanco is about food. can´t wait to get some soon...
peace and love to all, te extraño!
s
Thursday, February 19, 2009
first experiences at the casa
not much time to write as i´m on the office computer at casa guatemala. that´s starting to be a theme... there weren´t enough people signed up to take the boat to town on wednesday so it didn´t go - if it´s not worth the gasoline then it doesn´t happen and that´s pretty much a rule of thumb around here.
my first days at the casa have been expectedly difficult and exciting. i finally got my work assignment and i´m happy with it. i am an orientadora for the niñas grandes - girls from 10 to 17. i live in the dorms with another orientadora, jasmine from australia. we get great help from a third orientadora, chini from españa, who doubles as a nurse in the clinic and sleeps there. we wake the girls up at 4.45 in the morning. it´s still dark, but we are lucky enough to get electricity in the mornings from then until about 6 - the lights begin to go off every 23 seconds for the last 40 minutes of breakfast, chores and teethbrushing. without the lights we would never get the girls out of bed - or ourselves either! they do full chores before breakfast on a rotating schedule - bathrooms, bedrooms, living area, terrace, front office, laundry area, front porch. they also take (cold!) showers and help prepare meals in the kitchen all before 6 a.m. it seems like a pretty intense life to outsiders but it´s a typical schedule for girls their age in guatemala. we have a break once they go to school from 7-ish to 10.45 when we quickly eat our lunch. seems early for lunch, but believe me, we´re hungry by then! we are around for their lunch and break before it´s back to school at 12.40. then we´re on break again from 1 to 4 when we get them for activities before dinner at 6. other volunteers do activities after dinner until 7.30 when we get them to shower and in bed by 8. trying to get 32 girls in bed and stop chatting is not easy...
the meals since i´ve gotten here have been stellar compared to what i hear is normal. they butchered some chickens and had a green bean harvest the day before i arrived so we had diced green beans with shredded chicken twice, with black beans and tortillas tortillas tortillas! also, they recently increased the number of eggs that go towards the kids´meals so we´ve had fried and hard-boiled eggs for several meals. also white rice and spaghetti in a tasty red sauce, and one day a desert-like dough in sugar syrup. we did run out of food one day before everyone got seconds. one of the volunteers had a benefit in his home town in france. he raised $1800 dollars and asked that they buy fruit and vegetables for the kids each week. we haven´t heard anything about it for two and a half weeks and we´re all a bit worried. i should say hopeful. optimism is always a plus here. turn that frown upside down.
the young kids are instantly loving and adorable which makes everything easier here. it´s interesting though, to see how 20-something people differ on child-rearing. almost always, the discussions are about safety versus guatemalan custom. should the kids have to wear sandals in the river for safety when most guatemalans have no problem walking everywhere without shoes? should they be allowed to have knives when lots of kids grow up using machetes and even guns? big questions with myriad opinions from volunteers hailing from españa, germany, australia, portugal, south africa, and the u.s.
i´ve been so busy adjusting, learning, being super-sassed by teenagers in spanish (i´m sure i don´t know the half of what they´re calling me - always my response is no me importa), that i completely forgot to be excited about my first descans (rest). i leave for costa rica to see my brother´s mom and my friend ms. lacey on the 24th. a six-hour bus-ride to guatemala city and an hour and half plane to san jose will be made much easier by my guatemaltecan friend pepin driving me in the city between the bus and the airport both ways. i´ll return to guate on the 2nd of march. i realized a few hours ago how exciting it is that i´m going to costa rica!!! if i were in the states living my normal life i would have been coming out of my skin with anticipation. instead i had to actually remind myself to go on vacation... totally different life!
having trouble posting pics but hopefully will be able to put some up when i´m at the internet cafe in town on monday night. also will be on skype sometime that afternoon - misshess38.
no time to edit this - con permiso - activities are starting and i need to take a group of our girls to the park while the others swim in the river
paz a tí!
s
my first days at the casa have been expectedly difficult and exciting. i finally got my work assignment and i´m happy with it. i am an orientadora for the niñas grandes - girls from 10 to 17. i live in the dorms with another orientadora, jasmine from australia. we get great help from a third orientadora, chini from españa, who doubles as a nurse in the clinic and sleeps there. we wake the girls up at 4.45 in the morning. it´s still dark, but we are lucky enough to get electricity in the mornings from then until about 6 - the lights begin to go off every 23 seconds for the last 40 minutes of breakfast, chores and teethbrushing. without the lights we would never get the girls out of bed - or ourselves either! they do full chores before breakfast on a rotating schedule - bathrooms, bedrooms, living area, terrace, front office, laundry area, front porch. they also take (cold!) showers and help prepare meals in the kitchen all before 6 a.m. it seems like a pretty intense life to outsiders but it´s a typical schedule for girls their age in guatemala. we have a break once they go to school from 7-ish to 10.45 when we quickly eat our lunch. seems early for lunch, but believe me, we´re hungry by then! we are around for their lunch and break before it´s back to school at 12.40. then we´re on break again from 1 to 4 when we get them for activities before dinner at 6. other volunteers do activities after dinner until 7.30 when we get them to shower and in bed by 8. trying to get 32 girls in bed and stop chatting is not easy...
the meals since i´ve gotten here have been stellar compared to what i hear is normal. they butchered some chickens and had a green bean harvest the day before i arrived so we had diced green beans with shredded chicken twice, with black beans and tortillas tortillas tortillas! also, they recently increased the number of eggs that go towards the kids´meals so we´ve had fried and hard-boiled eggs for several meals. also white rice and spaghetti in a tasty red sauce, and one day a desert-like dough in sugar syrup. we did run out of food one day before everyone got seconds. one of the volunteers had a benefit in his home town in france. he raised $1800 dollars and asked that they buy fruit and vegetables for the kids each week. we haven´t heard anything about it for two and a half weeks and we´re all a bit worried. i should say hopeful. optimism is always a plus here. turn that frown upside down.
the young kids are instantly loving and adorable which makes everything easier here. it´s interesting though, to see how 20-something people differ on child-rearing. almost always, the discussions are about safety versus guatemalan custom. should the kids have to wear sandals in the river for safety when most guatemalans have no problem walking everywhere without shoes? should they be allowed to have knives when lots of kids grow up using machetes and even guns? big questions with myriad opinions from volunteers hailing from españa, germany, australia, portugal, south africa, and the u.s.
i´ve been so busy adjusting, learning, being super-sassed by teenagers in spanish (i´m sure i don´t know the half of what they´re calling me - always my response is no me importa), that i completely forgot to be excited about my first descans (rest). i leave for costa rica to see my brother´s mom and my friend ms. lacey on the 24th. a six-hour bus-ride to guatemala city and an hour and half plane to san jose will be made much easier by my guatemaltecan friend pepin driving me in the city between the bus and the airport both ways. i´ll return to guate on the 2nd of march. i realized a few hours ago how exciting it is that i´m going to costa rica!!! if i were in the states living my normal life i would have been coming out of my skin with anticipation. instead i had to actually remind myself to go on vacation... totally different life!
having trouble posting pics but hopefully will be able to put some up when i´m at the internet cafe in town on monday night. also will be on skype sometime that afternoon - misshess38.
no time to edit this - con permiso - activities are starting and i need to take a group of our girls to the park while the others swim in the river
paz a tí!
s
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
a hefty entry (con fotos)
holy guacamole, it took a long time to post those pictures. thankfully internet is working at backpackers today and i´m shamelessly hogging the computer. the pics posted in reverse order so start at the bottom and work your way up. the pic of the older woman is Señora Wilma with Dalila, who is very pregnant. Señora is manager of the restaurant, helping Señora Raquel keep us all in line. the so-called top of the heap is Señora Angie, who took over the orphanage from a couple of canadians who were not providing proper nutrition. she generally stays in guate (how everyone refers to guatemala city) but is here for a few days, so i have the unique opportunity to chat with her, and receive my assignment from her, as opposed to sebastien, the frenchman who is the official coordinator of jobs at the casa. it sounds like i will be a refuerzo, giving extra help and individual attention to kids during their english classes. i won´t actually know until i start, though. she´s got the only non-street-dog pet i´ve seen yet. a shaggy white hair-ball named mandu, like, kat mandu, pero perro. picture the sassy girl dog in the pound of "lady and the tramp" who tells lady what´s up. lots of personality, and so nice to be able to actually pet one of the hundreds of dogs around here.
my spanish is improving with the help of Edi, a server in the restaurant with me. he´s a wonderful guy. 19 years-old and his baby just turned 2 months. the culture is one of very young parents and many many children. (something the orphanage tries to educate appropriate aged kids about). Edin is another employee who is working on his english with me, and helping my spanish along. Daniel is 17, works in the kitchen, and the best kind of trouble-maker - you can see it in his smile! we have plans to fish together this week and cook our catch. there is also a young guy, Ivan, who i think is somewhere around 13, but seems well beyond his years, both in experience and thoughtfulness. his family moved to rio dulce from guate because their neighborhood became too dangerous. he hangs out here, practicing his english with the volunteers, and hoping that Señora Raquel will make good on the scholarship she hopes to get him, so that he can go to highschool. he´s an excellent artist and a commission usually takes 20 minutes or less - i´m waiting for my picture of animals of the region. he´s in the pic with me and dark-haired rita from portugal, and red-headed claudine from south africa. (the other pic of rita is with jason, a crab-fisherman from alaska (he was on the first season of "deadliest catch!"), and the other of claudine is with our israeli friend nerri).
spent the last couple days with a great girl, jessica, a nurse from missouri. she unexpectedly was forced to travel alone for the first time at age 22 after she had begun her trip and is doing a great job of it. she bravely continued on this morning, and i´ll miss her. i spoke with her about the casa, so she and i and Raymundo from italy went for the tour yesterday - my first time there. it´s pretty crazy great and exactly what i had anticipated and hoped for, if a little muddy and buggy (big surprise in the jungle, right?).
i served a group of doctors from the states, and found out they were here for a week of checkups. they did all 220 kids in one day, then all the workers, their families, and the volunteers in another, then spent the rest of the time hiking into smaller villages from the river. they said compared to the surrounding villages, the casa kids seemed better nourished. guatemalans are short in stature in general, but part of that is attributed to mal-nourishment. of the 220, about 50 are genuine orphans, and the rest are divided between kids who come to stay at the casa for school most of the year, and the kids from the surrounding villages who are able to walk from home.
the casa looks pretty close to the website´s portrayal, with the exception that the farmland definitely does not provide as much support as implied. my first night here, i met a volunteer who told me that the environmental aspects of the casa that i was so excited to take part in are mostly untrue. i hesitated to report that until i saw for myself. es la verdad, unfortunamente. it was a hard pill to take on my first night, and had me pretty depressed, actually. however, ONE look at the kids, and any reservations i had were out the ventana. it´s all about them, whether we´re burning plastic garbage, eating mostly beans and rice, or not. Señora Angie came to the hostel to complete the adoption of a little girl, i think by a dutch couple. manuel, the volunteer who showed us around, said that it usually takes around 2 years for the government to get around to approving an adoption. a previous volunteer is currently trying to adopt 3 brothers and a sister to new york, and having a heck of a time trying to get anything moving. it´s hard to think of kids spending more than 50% of their young lives waiting to be adopted by people who already want them.
i´ve made a couple of guatemaltecan friends: Wagner( in the picture with me) Juan, and Arnulfo. Arnulfo is an older gentleman - mom, you´d love him, he´s a real cowboy! el rrrrancho! he has invited me to dinner with his wife and 5 year-old son for some authentic food. we talk a lot about the importance of valuing each life, and the environment, and he and his friends already don´t throw their garbage on the ground or in the river.... when i´m around. they are making plans to come to the casa for a visit to see the kids.
life here feels right, and more so each day. it´s not all peaches, certainly not glamorous, and definitely not the paradise of volunteering i was hoping for. but i´m also finding that that was a pretty naive wish. best that can be done is to learn and enjoy the culture, which is more than satisfying, until i can be with the kids full-time. the constant and unceasing slap slap of ladies making tortillas; the "buenos dias" to everyone you pass in the street, on the bridge, or in the store; the universal love of bob marley! when we taste things, we put a dollop in the center of the palm and slurp it up. toilet paper goes in garbage, a habit hard to break, as my Ham family cousins warned me. guatemaltecans asking me not what i´m reading, but why. that always leads to a slightly confused but great conversation!
speaking of reading, i just finished a great book. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Kingsolver, about the benefits and importance of eating food from close to home. that´s one thing i´m definitely doing, even if it doesn´t come from the farm here. the luxuries of america are pretty weird when you think about it, which we know already. but this book does a nice job of articulating those weird things and outlining their impact. she´s pretty darn funny too. for instance, did you know that the butterballs we get for thanksgiving make up 99.5% of turkeys in the u.s., but that they are so big-breasted they can´t stand or mate? shanahan fam - what do you think of trying an heirloom turkey for thanksgiving? could be a cool experiment. uncle bob could roast some shoe leather and it would be great, so what´s to lose? (slow food international takes orders in april) hope that wasn´t too preachy.
i´m looking for a ticket now to take me to costa rica at the end of the month. i´ll meet up with dear friend ms. lacey and her boyfriend from minneapolis, and spend some time with Judy, my brother´s mom, who lives in san jose. looking forward to sun and hopefully some beach. people in chicago talk about the cold all the time (ahem, caitlin) but imagine what guatemaltecans are obsessed with when it´s cold and raining and they´re used to jungle heat. Señora Wilma said "que frio" to me no less than 17 times the other day.
i´m treating this as a journal mostly, but i´d love to know who my readers are. you don´t have to register to post an anonymous comment, so just say hola, what up, or hi, and let me know who´s out there.
paz a ti
s
my spanish is improving with the help of Edi, a server in the restaurant with me. he´s a wonderful guy. 19 years-old and his baby just turned 2 months. the culture is one of very young parents and many many children. (something the orphanage tries to educate appropriate aged kids about). Edin is another employee who is working on his english with me, and helping my spanish along. Daniel is 17, works in the kitchen, and the best kind of trouble-maker - you can see it in his smile! we have plans to fish together this week and cook our catch. there is also a young guy, Ivan, who i think is somewhere around 13, but seems well beyond his years, both in experience and thoughtfulness. his family moved to rio dulce from guate because their neighborhood became too dangerous. he hangs out here, practicing his english with the volunteers, and hoping that Señora Raquel will make good on the scholarship she hopes to get him, so that he can go to highschool. he´s an excellent artist and a commission usually takes 20 minutes or less - i´m waiting for my picture of animals of the region. he´s in the pic with me and dark-haired rita from portugal, and red-headed claudine from south africa. (the other pic of rita is with jason, a crab-fisherman from alaska (he was on the first season of "deadliest catch!"), and the other of claudine is with our israeli friend nerri).
spent the last couple days with a great girl, jessica, a nurse from missouri. she unexpectedly was forced to travel alone for the first time at age 22 after she had begun her trip and is doing a great job of it. she bravely continued on this morning, and i´ll miss her. i spoke with her about the casa, so she and i and Raymundo from italy went for the tour yesterday - my first time there. it´s pretty crazy great and exactly what i had anticipated and hoped for, if a little muddy and buggy (big surprise in the jungle, right?).
i served a group of doctors from the states, and found out they were here for a week of checkups. they did all 220 kids in one day, then all the workers, their families, and the volunteers in another, then spent the rest of the time hiking into smaller villages from the river. they said compared to the surrounding villages, the casa kids seemed better nourished. guatemalans are short in stature in general, but part of that is attributed to mal-nourishment. of the 220, about 50 are genuine orphans, and the rest are divided between kids who come to stay at the casa for school most of the year, and the kids from the surrounding villages who are able to walk from home.
the casa looks pretty close to the website´s portrayal, with the exception that the farmland definitely does not provide as much support as implied. my first night here, i met a volunteer who told me that the environmental aspects of the casa that i was so excited to take part in are mostly untrue. i hesitated to report that until i saw for myself. es la verdad, unfortunamente. it was a hard pill to take on my first night, and had me pretty depressed, actually. however, ONE look at the kids, and any reservations i had were out the ventana. it´s all about them, whether we´re burning plastic garbage, eating mostly beans and rice, or not. Señora Angie came to the hostel to complete the adoption of a little girl, i think by a dutch couple. manuel, the volunteer who showed us around, said that it usually takes around 2 years for the government to get around to approving an adoption. a previous volunteer is currently trying to adopt 3 brothers and a sister to new york, and having a heck of a time trying to get anything moving. it´s hard to think of kids spending more than 50% of their young lives waiting to be adopted by people who already want them.
i´ve made a couple of guatemaltecan friends: Wagner( in the picture with me) Juan, and Arnulfo. Arnulfo is an older gentleman - mom, you´d love him, he´s a real cowboy! el rrrrancho! he has invited me to dinner with his wife and 5 year-old son for some authentic food. we talk a lot about the importance of valuing each life, and the environment, and he and his friends already don´t throw their garbage on the ground or in the river.... when i´m around. they are making plans to come to the casa for a visit to see the kids.
life here feels right, and more so each day. it´s not all peaches, certainly not glamorous, and definitely not the paradise of volunteering i was hoping for. but i´m also finding that that was a pretty naive wish. best that can be done is to learn and enjoy the culture, which is more than satisfying, until i can be with the kids full-time. the constant and unceasing slap slap of ladies making tortillas; the "buenos dias" to everyone you pass in the street, on the bridge, or in the store; the universal love of bob marley! when we taste things, we put a dollop in the center of the palm and slurp it up. toilet paper goes in garbage, a habit hard to break, as my Ham family cousins warned me. guatemaltecans asking me not what i´m reading, but why. that always leads to a slightly confused but great conversation!
speaking of reading, i just finished a great book. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Kingsolver, about the benefits and importance of eating food from close to home. that´s one thing i´m definitely doing, even if it doesn´t come from the farm here. the luxuries of america are pretty weird when you think about it, which we know already. but this book does a nice job of articulating those weird things and outlining their impact. she´s pretty darn funny too. for instance, did you know that the butterballs we get for thanksgiving make up 99.5% of turkeys in the u.s., but that they are so big-breasted they can´t stand or mate? shanahan fam - what do you think of trying an heirloom turkey for thanksgiving? could be a cool experiment. uncle bob could roast some shoe leather and it would be great, so what´s to lose? (slow food international takes orders in april) hope that wasn´t too preachy.
i´m looking for a ticket now to take me to costa rica at the end of the month. i´ll meet up with dear friend ms. lacey and her boyfriend from minneapolis, and spend some time with Judy, my brother´s mom, who lives in san jose. looking forward to sun and hopefully some beach. people in chicago talk about the cold all the time (ahem, caitlin) but imagine what guatemaltecans are obsessed with when it´s cold and raining and they´re used to jungle heat. Señora Wilma said "que frio" to me no less than 17 times the other day.
i´m treating this as a journal mostly, but i´d love to know who my readers are. you don´t have to register to post an anonymous comment, so just say hola, what up, or hi, and let me know who´s out there.
paz a ti
s
Friday, February 6, 2009
trabajo en el hotel
Not much time to write as I am working in the restaurant right now, technically. We have only one set of customers, though, so Iºm making the most of it. They hail from Kalamazoo and South Haven, Michigan - go figure - very devoted to backpacking the authentic way and must be in their sixties, though you wouldnºt know it. Life, while fairly relaxed, has not been easy the first few days. Working in the restaurant with very little spanish has been hard, and the manager, senora raquel, is no picnic. There is very little instruction so iºm learning by making mistakes, and being scolded in rapid-fire spanish for anything else that goes wrong around here: wrong orders, missing food, dirty dishes, you name it. Iºm not letting it get to me though - restaurants are the same everywhere. This may be a developing nation, but the pride people take in running a business es la misma... switching into spanish without knowing it is my new favorite surprise...
The picture of the Rio Dulce is straight out from the restaurant which is on a dock over the river, and the shot from the top of the bridge is half way between Hotel Backpackers and Fronteras, the small town nearby. Today, Rita, a volunteer, and Nerri, a traveler from Israel, and I went to Finca Paraiso. An hour by bus and a short hike opens to a gorge with icy water, and a waterfall fed by super hot! hot springs. It was phenomenally beautiful and exhilarating, and very nice to be away from the hostel for a few hours. The other two volunteers, Claudine from South Africa is the other, both head to the casa to begin work tomorrow. Iºm hoping someone new comes soon, but if not, the wonderful thing about travel is that people are always interested in making new friends. It was wonderful to arrive and immediately meet a dozen or more people who donºt think this is a crazy adventure, just normal. Iºm usually the least travelled of everyone I meet!
Iºve got some amazing pictures to share already, but as the internet only works occasionally, I wasnºt able to upload them today. More to come...
Despite the boredom of working in a restuarant and feeling confined to the hostel, Iºm appreciating the time i have for reflection before the craziness of 250 kids happens - but i canºt wait!!!
I had hoped this would be a better entry, had jotted some interesting things down to share with you all, but wasnºt able to get my book, and time is limited. Itºs also partly the terrible cold Iºve been fighting for a couple days clouding my head - itºs cold here! Nearly everyone is underprepared for the wind and rain and I definitely should have brought a blanket!
Iºm certainly making due, though, and very very glad to be experiencing Guatemala - a truly wonderful country with very open and caring people. Some of those people are the employees here at the hostel, who work with us everyday on our spanish, with a few english lessons for them. People are beginning to understand me and enter willingly into conversation, love it!
Canºt possibly get into words how much i miss friends and family, but also canºt get away from the feeling that Iºm doing the right thing with my life right now.
love and peace to you
s
Sunday, February 1, 2009
first moments
hola!
i´m safely at the hotel backpackers - a youth hostel 20 minutes up the river from the orphanage. i flew out of chicago at 5.30 am yesterday, stopped in houston, arrived in guatemala city at 1 pm. my first glimpse of the country side from the plain was breath-taking, literally. the clouds parted for a moment and lush greens and raw browns showed amazingly dynamic mountains with small towns on their tops looking like silver icing. taxi to bus stop and 6 hours later i was dropped at the huge bridge that spans the rio dulce (that´s the "sweet river" for non-spanish amigos). great friend patty McC recorded my favorite guitar riff that he composed and i listened to it as i began the trip - it was a wonderful moment combining home and adventure. the bus ride was beautiful, the terrain here is all the more enthralling because darling chicago is so flat! we stopped for a meal and i had roast chicken with rice and salsa, and fried plantains with creme fraiche. pretty great for a truck stop - i think i´m going to like it here...
i arrived in the pouring rain and they quickly brought a volunteer down who speaks english. there are 3 other girls who have started over the last 10 days. we all work 2 weeks at the hostel in the restaurant/bar before we move over to the casa. volunteers from the casa come to the hostel for after-dinner drinks on wednesdays and saturdays so i met a couple of them last night - of course, very nice people.
i´m about to head across the bridge into "town" - fronteras or el relleno - not sure which. my first shift will be at 3 this afternoon and go to 11. already i´ve begun to experience the latin culture so working tonight will be fun. within moments of sitting down last night i was shaken hands with, kissed, told i was beautiful, complimented on my teeth, and invited to go dancing. friendly doesn´t begin to cover it!
apparently the internet doesn´t always work so i will be posting as often as possible.
i´m already missing home, but as i fell asleep to the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof above my head, and the breeze blowing through the screens that serve as walls, i was and still am, very hopeful.
love and peace to you
s
i´m safely at the hotel backpackers - a youth hostel 20 minutes up the river from the orphanage. i flew out of chicago at 5.30 am yesterday, stopped in houston, arrived in guatemala city at 1 pm. my first glimpse of the country side from the plain was breath-taking, literally. the clouds parted for a moment and lush greens and raw browns showed amazingly dynamic mountains with small towns on their tops looking like silver icing. taxi to bus stop and 6 hours later i was dropped at the huge bridge that spans the rio dulce (that´s the "sweet river" for non-spanish amigos). great friend patty McC recorded my favorite guitar riff that he composed and i listened to it as i began the trip - it was a wonderful moment combining home and adventure. the bus ride was beautiful, the terrain here is all the more enthralling because darling chicago is so flat! we stopped for a meal and i had roast chicken with rice and salsa, and fried plantains with creme fraiche. pretty great for a truck stop - i think i´m going to like it here...
i arrived in the pouring rain and they quickly brought a volunteer down who speaks english. there are 3 other girls who have started over the last 10 days. we all work 2 weeks at the hostel in the restaurant/bar before we move over to the casa. volunteers from the casa come to the hostel for after-dinner drinks on wednesdays and saturdays so i met a couple of them last night - of course, very nice people.
i´m about to head across the bridge into "town" - fronteras or el relleno - not sure which. my first shift will be at 3 this afternoon and go to 11. already i´ve begun to experience the latin culture so working tonight will be fun. within moments of sitting down last night i was shaken hands with, kissed, told i was beautiful, complimented on my teeth, and invited to go dancing. friendly doesn´t begin to cover it!
apparently the internet doesn´t always work so i will be posting as often as possible.
i´m already missing home, but as i fell asleep to the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof above my head, and the breeze blowing through the screens that serve as walls, i was and still am, very hopeful.
love and peace to you
s
Friday, January 16, 2009
Guatemala Within Reach
After several months of research I have found what I think will be a wonderful volunteer opportunity. Casa Guatemala, also known as "the children's village," is an orphanage for wards of the state of Guatemala, as well as a place for children whose parents are not able to afford schooling or enough food. The village that surrounds the Casa is almost entirely self-sustaining, with organic greenhouses, farming, fisheries, and on-site meat raising and butchering. It is located in the Rio Dulce region of eastern Guatemala, nestled in the jungle and facing the river among a few indigenous villages.
As I looked at different organizations, I narrowed my focus to Central America, as I'm hoping to travel as much as possible. I also realized that the projects I was interested in always included either education or environmental improvement. When I came upon the Casa, I found both. There are no refrigerators in the village, meaning everything is fresh. Most Americans don't connect where their food, especially meat, comes from, or that it used to be a living creature. I'm looking forward to living closer to the land. They also have a nifty "green" gadget called a biodigester: it uses the methane gas contained in pig poop to power the incubators for the baby chicks - how cool is that! Most importantly, I'll be able to help disadvantaged kids get the education that is so often the only way out of poverty. My dad devoted much of his life to this idea, and my mom, as an educator and later a survey director, has also. I believe in the power of education and am thrilled that I have the chance to be a part of it. I'll be adding stories and photos of my experiences and travels here. I'll try to keep the posts "G-rated" but parents should read it through first just to make sure the content is ok for kids. Thanks for reading, and therefore, supporting. peace to you, sarah
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