Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Half way through PCT



No soy bandita!
We were walking around the city with our language/culture facilitator when suddenly a little girl pops out from an alley.  She shrieks, and runs back to hide behind her mother’s legs.  As we pass, she starts crying, saying “Ellas van a llevarme!!” or “They are going to take me away!”. 
Lesson of the day: Guatemalan mothers tell their children that if they don’t behave, the gringos are going to come and take them away.  Soy Americana.  Soy gringa. Soy boogyman. 

Chuchos, chuchos everywhere!
Chucho is the term used for street dogs in Guatemala and they are everywhere! Many are flea-infested and mangy, with skin clinging to their bones.  The streets are fairly dirty because dog poop is all over (adding to the copious amounts of cow poop and horse poop).
Many Guatemaltecos have dogs, but they are not seen the same way as pets are in the US.  The dogs here are usually tied up outside of homes for protection against thieves.  My first host family had a dog named Spike.  Spike got loose and killed three chickens while I was there!
My current host family has a dog named Bobby (pronounced “Buawby”).  Bobby is some sort of cocker spaniel mix and is eleven years old with bad hips.  This dog is SO adorable.  If he isn’t barking at chuchos through the door, he is usually sitting outside the kitchen or underneath the stairwell.  They call it Bobby’s cave.   Bobby enjoys eating the family’s leftovers.  He doesn’t like picante. I asked…
Spanglish: The Official Language of Peace Corps Guatemala
So, learning Spanish has produced some pretty hilarious mix-ups.  I know there have been a ton more, but these are the few that I can remember from class and my own daily living:
“Embarrasada” is not ‘embarrassed’ but ‘pregnant’.
‘Caballos’= horses, ‘cebollas’= onions, and ‘caballeros’=men
‘Manos’=hands and ‘monos’=monkeys
“muerden”=they bite, “mueren”=they die
“mascota” does mean ‘mascot’, but also means ‘pet’
“huevos” means ‘eggs’ and ‘testicles’.  If you go into a store and ask “Tiene huevos?” Do you have eggs? The tienda owner will say, “Si, tengo dos!” Yes, I have two!
“chuchos”=street dogs, “chuchito”= a type of tamale, “chapines”=slang for  ‘guatemaltecos’  
“Esconder”=to hide, “Encontrar”= to find (you don’t want to know how often I have asked “Did you hide what you were looking for?”)

“cervesa” = beer, “servilleta”=napkin
“madera”=wood, “mareada”= dizzy
“bomberos”= firefighters, “bombas”=fireworks
Oh the weird looks we get when we talk about hands in the forest and the firefighters exploding in the sky…..
The sounds of Guate
Bombas crack open the sky every morning for birthday celebrations.  Once you get over the urge to roll out of bed and hit the deck every morning, it actually becomes a fairly good wake-up call.  If the bombas don’t wake you up at 5:30, around 6:00am the propane gas truck rolls through town.  This truck channels the blues mobile with its white loudspeakers strapped to the roof.  Every morning and evening we are serenaded with a continuous pattern of a loud horn blast follow by “Zeta GAAAAAAAASS!” and then the theme song “Zeta! Zeta! Zeta Gas!”  It took us a while to figure out what the truck was saying.  One volunteer comically thought it was shouting “get uuuppppp!” every morning. 
Occasionally the egg truck also rolls through town.  It too has large speakers attached to its roof lacks the catchy theme song.  Instead, we hear “Huevos! Huevos! Quince huevos por diez quetzals!” Not a bad price….
One of my favorite sounds is the kids playing futbol in the allies and streets!  Coming from a world where video games rule all, it is actually refreshing to hear kids playing sports outside. 
Another sound that I find extremely comical—family conversations with the grandparents.  As far as I can tell, hearing aids are pretty much nonexistent so when the abuelos come over, every conversation is a screaming match.  I had all I could do to respectfully listen to my host mom explaining how the tortilla cloth my abuela brought over was not my aunt’s, but rather my mom’s.  “ESO ES MIO! NO ES DE ELLA! YO LO COMPRE!!” THIS IS MINE! IT’S NOT HERS! I BOUGHT IT!
Creepy Crawlies
Not so bad right now….knock on ‘madera’….
I did kill an enormous spider in my room—some spindly looking daddy-long-legs creepy thing that was a little bigger than a half-dollar.  And several other volunteers have reported cockroaches in the bathrooms.
And I have fleas. My host mom says that they’re mosquito bites.  I feel bad, because I think she thought that I was inferring that I got the bites while I was in her house, but I probably got them just from walking down the street with all of the chuchos…
Chicken bus: eventful story #1
I have officially ridden the infamous chicken buses! The PCTs all went to Antigua to visit a finca de café (a coffee farm).  The four of us from my training site went with our language instructor from the training site to another city where we transferred to the Antigua chicken bus.  We round the corner to the Antigua bus stop and immediately here choruses of “Corre! Corre!” (Run! Run!).  So we run, but not to the front of the bus—we jump up into the back of the bus through the emergency exit.  I’m not sure the door was even closed before we took off!
Every seat had at least three people, some four if they had kids.  We squished onto a seat—one cheek in the isle, one on the seat, which meant that every time the bus whipped around the corner of the mountainous road, you ended up doing a squat in the isle.  As one volunteer said, the two people sitting next to here were passionately swapping spit and were sitting very close so she had a bit more room….
We arrived in Antigua and needed to exit the bus.  Three of us, plus our instructor, started working our way to the front of the bus but one volunteer got stuck in the back.  We got off the bus and I turned around to find the other volunteer.  I started to panic because the bus pulled away and I didn’t see her right away. Turns out she jumped out of the emergency exit in the back!
We switched buses again to get to the finca, and while this bus was less crowded, it was just as humorous.  I need to describe the interior of this bus to give the appropriate image of Guatemalan public transportation.  Most of these buses are discarded school buses from the US.  Most have LED running lights around the windshield and some sort of sticker theme happening on the inside: spiderman, Disney’s Cars, transformers, etc. This particular bus lacked the stickers, but had a giant holographic image of Jesus, a teddy bear chilling in a hammock and a stuffed monkey peering out of one of the luggage racks.  The ayudante—the guy who walks through the bus collecting the fare—was wearing a shirt that said (in English) “This is what the world’s greatest mom looks like”. 
I’m not being sarcastic when I say that this was truly one of the most fun things I have ever done! 
 Coffee Finca, hubo muchas mariposas!

 Trumpet Flowers

 Papaya Tree

 Aves de Paradiso, of course!
Something to think about.
Many of our clothes in the US are made in Guatemala.  We wear these clothes for a while and then donate them to charities. Charities bundle up these clothes in large “Pacas” and then sell them at very cheap prices to countries around the world.  The Paca clothes end up back on the store shelves of the people who made the clothes in the first place.  Try explaining this to your host dad…
Doing laundry
Generally, my host mom does my laundry, but on the occasion when my clothes are really dirty or when I have to wash my ropa interior, this is how it’s done. 
1)      Fill up the round circular bin with water and a bit of detergent, then dump your clothes inside.  Let your clothes soak for a good 15 minutes. 
2)      Eat breakfast/lunch while clothes are soaking. 
3)      Take one piece of clothing (let’s say a sock) and place it in the clothes lavadora side of the pila.  Using one hand to hold the top edge of the sock, enjabonar (put soap on) on the sock and then scrub the sock back and forth across the corrugated cement sink floor.  Flip the sock over, repeat. Turn the sock inside out and repeat. 
4)      Rinse out sock with pila water and put into a clean bucket.  After washing all of your laundry, bring it up to the roof and hang it on the clothes line by wedging the corners of your clothes between the braided strands of line. 
5)      Hope that it doesn’t rain.  If it does rain, shrug and just believe that your clothes are getting an extra rinse. 
Being sick…doesn’t matter where you are, it’s still horrible!
Without going into too much detail on the internet, I spent two nights in Guatemala City in the hospital.  I know I wasn’t feeling well, but I think PC went a bit overboard with the number of tests I had done! Every time I went into a test I got the same question, (either in broken English or Spanish) “Who are you? Why are you getting all of these tests? And who is paying for this?”
The exam rooms (Xray, ultrasound,CT, etc) were the only rooms that had air conditioning.  My room had two fans hanging on the wall and an open window.  But interestingly enough, my doctor in the hospital is the only doctor in Guate qualified to attend to the US president if he ever needed medical attention while in country. 
More interesting than my actual stay in the hospital was my return home.  Still not feeling 100% my host mom and family refused to serve me ‘cold’ foods.  Any type of pasta (be it hot or cold), salad, or fruit was out the window for the next few days.  My host dad constantly teased me because a few days before my hospital stint I had helped with some of the family chores by washing and cutting up a mountain of guicoyitos.  He kept saying that they gave me too much work to do and I was stressed! Hahaha!
The feria. AKA the entire town is really cranky from lack of sleep…
BANG! Pop! Pop! Pop! All night every night for the past week or so. Bombas—fireworks and firecrackers.  I had previously gotten used to waking up early every morning  to the sweet sounds of bombas for birthday celebrations, but now that it is the final weekend of the Feria, the joyful sounds of celebration continue on ALL NIGHT!!  Music, bombas and borachos. Halfway through the night, I lost one of my ear plugs so every time I rolled over I had to switch ears. 
The interesting thing about this Feria is that it is put on by the Catholic church in my town.  My host-family is evangelical and therefore their church does not allow them to attend.  (They are not permitted to dance or sing).  I tried testing the waters to see if my host family would suggest that I stop by at night to check out the Feria, and if I were to ask, I’m pretty sure I would get a resounding “NO!”.  
 Two of my PCT site mates (and me)!


 The e;ntrance to the Puesto de Salud where three other trainees and I are going to host a health fair!
 mercado!

 Vendors for the Feria
 Are you brave enough to ride?

 The "Muni" or municipalidad where most city functions are held
 Your average tienda...this one tends to over charge us because we are gringas!

Marimba!
So I spent a significant amount of time listening to Salsa music and the Spanish radio station in Tampa in order to prepare for Guate.  Turns out, the major music preference is Marimba, not salsa.  Today at the Feria seven different Marimba bands joined together on stage to form a 50-member band.  The town had spent a great deal of time assembling a large stage with a giant red canvas tent in the middle of the market.  It started raining…well, down pouring, and the Marimba band just kept playing on! Everyone huddled underneath the canvas and under covers of the food vendors and I lamented the fact that my laundry was getting a second rinse. 
After the rain let up, the crowed spread back out, the Marimba continued, and people started dancing.  I think the most adorable couple was this 70 year old gringo couple who were tearing down the house! The other volunteers and I all agreed that we hope we have that same vivacity for life 50 years down the road from now! 

Drunk horses.
Like all scheduled events in Guatemala, the Feria’s horse parade started about 2 and a half hours later than it was supposed to.  This gave us an excellent opportunity to chat with the volunteers from our sister city and people watch.  Venders walked up and down the street with cowboy hats piled three feet high on top of their heads with shouts of “Sombreros! Sombreros! Sombritos por los ninos!”
We met another gringo and his family who moved to Guatemala a little over a year ago.  They built a school and now the father of the family facilitates the running of the school.  How cool!
Now back to this horse business… when the parade or “desfile” finally began, horses pranced sideways and backwards down the street.  With their feet clopping choppily they made their way down the street.  I began to notice that some of the horses were frothing at the mouth and not knowing much about horses, didn’t think too much of it.  That was until one of the smaller horses was stopped directly in front of us and a rather large cervesa (beer) was force fed directly into the horse’s mouth.  A little further down the parade route, we saw a horse eating pizza as well…  After I picked my chin up off the floor we surmised that this was how they got the horses to ‘dance’ down the street. 
I asked my host mom about it later, and her exact words were “La gente está loca!” (People are crazy).  She was watching from further down the street and saw that they were feeding beer to the horses right in front of us.  She said that they give beer to the horses every year before the parade but I got the impression that it was odd that they just happened to stop and do it in front of six American girls….


Chicken bus: eventful story #2
This particular bus had a small flat screen TV above the windshield.  For the entire 30 minute ride back from Antigua, we were serenaded with Latin music videos from the 90’s.
Check that one off the bucket list!
I rode a horse up a volcano. Yup! Sure did!
We arrived at the PC office bright and early with full water bottles, some banana bread and sliced sandía (watermelon).  We spit off into 3 minibuses and took off for Pacaya, one of the few active volcanos in Guate. (Pacaya’s last major eruption was three years ago!)
The paved winding roads leading up to Pacaya turned into dirt as we approached the base.  Children surrounded us as we climbed out of the vans asking if we would like to rent walking sticks for Q5.  After “subir-ing” for a good 20-30 minutes uphill on foot,  I caved in and rented a horse! Hahaha!
The horse took me to a point about 25 minutes from the top of the volcano and then it was on foot from there.  We walked upwards on paths carved through the sharp volcanic rock.  A fairly constant stream of white airy smoke puffed out of the mouth of Pacaya looking like nothing more than white clouds, but the occasional belch of black smoke and the steamy vents peaking out of the quagmire of rocks was just enough to remind us that we were indeed climbing up an active volcano. 
We spent a good 45 minutes at the top where I was fairly content to just sit back and take the whole experience in. The green  Lake Amatitlan was off to my right; the Volcán de Fuego, Volcán de Agua and Acatenango were to my left, surrounded by puffy white clouds; and the smoking Pacaya was directly behind me.  I’m not sure what more I could have asked for. 
We didn’t take exactly the same route to ‘bajar’ the volcano.  This new path involved what we called “snow-shoeing” down the side of the volcano on what was at least a 60 degree incline.  The volcanic rock was crumbled into round tiny pieces that varied in sizes from peas to grapes, and we ‘walked’ down it.  And by ‘walked’ I mean that we surfed, bounced, slid, skidded, jumped, rolled and just plain fell down the side of the volcano! Ha!
This fairly direct route took us about half way down.  After taking a minute to empty out our shoes, put band aids on our elbows and ankles, and complain about how our host moms were going to kill us for getting our socks dirty, we continued on!
We landed at the bottom of the volcano with a few scrapes, ashy faces and wobbly knees but overall, no worse for the wear.  However, I did crack up when I got home because when I blew my nose, everything that came out was grey!!  
“I’m on top of the world, hey! I’m on top of the world, hey!” 
 Vulcan de agua

“Been waiting on this for a while now! Been paying my dues to the dirt!”

“I’ve been waiting to smile, hey! I’ve been holding it in for a while, hey!”
 They grey rock is the lava from Pacaya's last major eruption, three years ago.

“I’ll take you with me if I can! I’m on top of the world!” 
 From left to right, Acatenango, Vulcan de Fuego and Vulcan de Agua




 Pacaya

No more horse....



 Volcanic Vent
 Lake Amatitlan



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