Home Sweet Home?

I'm back in the states where the water is warmer, the money smaller, and the toilets able to handle toilet paper.

Should Have Read the Guidebook

Just found this in a guidebook I clearly didn't look at very closely...It's about Hotel Backpacker, the place where we worked prior to going to Casa...

"Well-it's the cheapest place in town, which means its very popular with the backpackers who seem able to endure the impovershed foam beds in a large dormitory room with no privacy and brisk cold showers. The riverfront location is ideal, though, and the property even boasts a lakeside restaurant, a bar, and internet service. The staff isn't happy or helpful.

While staying at Hotel Backpackers, you may hear about Casa Guatemala Orphanage, which the hotel supports. There are rumors about whether the money actually makes it to the children, many of whom appear to be working here. The director has also started a rather controversial program where peoplee pay to volunteer at Casa Guatemala. There have been reports of volunteers being treated badly."

Guate, Guate!

While I personally use this word to refer to things that don't suck, it is also what is called out the doors of chicken buses on their way to Guatemala City, which is where I am. In Guatemala City. Not a chicken bus. Although that would be pretty cool too.

I didn't take a chicken bus here, I took a pullman bus. Is that what they're called in the states? I don't even know.

I am losing my english again, but only when talking about a few things, such as how long I have been here, why I am here, when I am leaving, and, for today only, why I am going to Guatemala City for less than a day. Pues, lo explico en espanol malo.

Llevo casi dos meses aqui. Estaba en Rio Dulce por tres semanas. Iba a ser voluntario en una casa de orfanos, pero me fui. No puedo explicar. Es complicado. Despues, pase una semana en Antigua, y dos semanas en Xela. Si, me gusta mucho.

Voy a Guate porque tengo que recoger (I'm not sure that's the right word...) una amiga que viene, y despues regresamos a Xela.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system...

For those of you who don't speak spanish, or who can't understand incorrect spanish, I am here in Guate to collect my girlfriend. Right now she has probably just stepped off the plane in Chicago, and will be here in just a few hours. It's unreal and amazing...

Today has been a fog bubble imaginary day. I've been floating around cooking oatmeal and fried rice, dropping off my laundry, and trying to set up a loom to weave on. I went to a panadaria today and only wanted some bread and instead got the life story of a woman whose boyfriend won't show her his house. I've relied on school children to help me cross the street. I feel a little like a puppy. It's kind of nice...

Revisiting Casa, at least a little.

During weaving today I met a girl from Holland who worked at Casa for three months. It was fun to revisit the place, although not so fun to visit there...Along those lines, here are some pictures from Casa...Most of them I took my last day there because I pretty much knew it would be my last day there...



Here's the inside of the classroom. It was hard teaching in a sideways classroom, but we did what we had to do. You may recognize the other teacher here. She was in the picture of us at the lake. She escaped shortly after I did.



Here's a shot of snack time. One day Marisol put her snack in her ear and told us that her mom put it there that morning. That was not really true.



Here are little people playing.

Here's Marisol, the precious little one who pooped her pants...

Here are my students, glowing like good students should



Leslie, Carla and Erica. Carla and Erica are sisters. You can tell because they have exactly the same face.

Mas Fotos!

I've become a foto posting freak! Hooray! I just went through and added pictures to a punch of different postings. If I added pictures I added (pics) next to the title, so if you're interested in seeing them, check it out.

Here are a few more for your viewing pleasure. Soon I will stop acting like a photo album and start acting like a blog again....




These little girls took over our cameras and hung out with us for hours. This is an awesome shot, obviously taken by the girl herself.






This is me playing with the special effects on the camera...






And here's a view from the pier at Casa. It wasn't all bad!!

Where we are now...

Here are some pictures of Xela. First, we deal with one of the best parts of this town: the food.



Here is the place where they make papusas. The local English language magazine here says of Papusas, "If you haven't ever had a papusa, take a moment to reevaluate your life." I completely agree. They are yummy, cheap, and haven't made any of us sick. Yet. Right now I am on a mission to get more foreigners to eat street food, as there is a rather irrational fear of it running around. Which means that if you are planning on visiting me in Guatemala, which I know you all want to, you will be highly encouraged to try a papusa.



Here are my lovely travel companions posing next to one of the many stands offering a variety of dulces. Most dulces consist of some sort of fruit and sugar. Yum.




Here is the view from our porch at night. Of course, a procession is going by. Also, I think the pictures might be upside down. Give me time people, give me time.



And here we are in the daytime. We're just on the second floor, so as you can see most of the regular buildings are just one story high. The churches and other important buildings are bigger of course...

That's a start. But I've got all day...Alllllllll day.

(I've actually gone back and added pictures to a couple other posts...Right now the coffee post has some new stuff, as does the Guate Part post...More to come...)

Pictures for sure!!

Here we are hiking from Santa Cruz to San Marcos.



And here I am chilling in a hammock in Santa Cruz.



Here's Becky and I at the foot of Pacaya, the active volcano in Antigua.

All these pictures of from Becky. Thanks Becky!!!

It's Semana Santa, Easter Sunday in fact, which means that there are processions all day every day (this town is addicted to processions!!), and that there is nothing else to do. Yesterday we spent five hours watching a Heroes marathon, playing Scrabble, and making friendship bracelets. Today our favorite internet place is open again, so expect more pictures soon!!

Pictures, Maybe....

This may or may not be a picture of all of us, including our visiting friends Becky from the States and Cristina from Espana.

Plan of the day...

Today I signed up for a Mayan weaving class. I start Monday and will be learning to weave for four hours a day for two days, and two hours the next...Why? Because I need another craft.

It would have been faster to drive, but...

Three days and 45 kilometers later, we are back in Xela (pronounced Shay-la, in case you were wondering...). The trek, as it's called, was awesome. The terrain and views were varied, the food was good, and the group of people was laid back.

We started out the first day with a two hour uphill hike. It was good to get it out of the way, and it was during this hike that Cheka, Phoebe and I discovered that according to Guatemalan tourist trekking standards, we are pretty fast! We kept pace with the lead guide. The hike up was on a rocky trail through the woods, and it reminded us of East Bay hiking trails (it's funny though, because a girl from Pennysalvania said that it reminded her of the trails where she lives. I guess even when away we are all looking for home.). At the top of the hill we stepped out into the grass lands. It is just now starting to hit the rainy season, so the grasses were all brown and dry. Ana, one of the guides, told us that these grasslands stretch all the way from Alaska down to Chile. I never think of climates as running horizontally, but I guess they do! Pretty cool. From the grasslands we hiked through a couple towns. First we hit Nueva Xitinamit (sounds a little like saying shit in the mist, although if you say it with the proper accent, it doesn't), which was rebuilt after Hurricane Mitch. From the towns we hit the woods again. I found that mostly I looked at my feet in an attempt not to trip, but when I did look up it was lush green plants of varying shapes and sizes and the occasional purple, pink, or orange flower.

We spent the first night in an abandoned medical clinic in a town called Santa Clarita. I do not recommend sleeping in abandoned medical clinics. There was no electricty or water (reminded me of Casa little...), and we slept on the floor of cement cells. Dinner was good though. We all ate in the "kitchen" which was the largest room, and the only room that had a bed, which served as our kitchen table. Although the accomadations were less than five star, we had a good time. The best part was that we got to use a temescal (home made sauna) in someone's backyard. The guides kept saying that we could clean up in the temescal, although it was beyond me how sitting and sweating more would make me clean. But the temescal was awesome. The room was small, maybe five feet by five feet, with a low ceiling and hot stones heated by the fire below. There was a spigot of cold water and big barrel of hot water and we mixed them together and cleaned up. Hands down, it was one of the best sauna experiences ever, although it was weird to step out and realize that wow, we were in someone's backyard.. .We fell asleep the first night to the sound of church bells, and woke up the next morning to the sound of church bells. In between I had an elaborate dream about a company that creates beautiful beds with soft pillows and elaborate bedspreads. It's a service that you purchase for your friends as gifts, and it sneaks into houses to set them up. It's a bit of a practical joke service too, because as nice as the beds are, they are also shortsheeted. I note this mostly because the next day was April first, so it was a pretty apt dream...

Sunday morning we ate a typical Guatemalan breakfast of eggs, beans, and rice (and this weird hot drink made of bananas...), and set out on the road again. We started off walking along a dirt road with cliffs rising to the left and steep almost vertical mountains rising to the right. Kids from the town we walked through ran out asking to have their pictures taken. After a couple of hours we hit a river where we took a little rest, and then climbed up one of the nearly vertical mountains. It was tough, but there was good cloud cover, and it's actually really rewarding to climb such a mountain. From there it was more little towns, dusty roads, and green plants. We hiked through cornfields and had lunch and a nap (all 17 of us...) on a grassy place by a river. Much of the second day was spent hiking up hills only to hike down them. We came into a valley where we crossed a the same river not one, not five, but fourteen times. This was actually one of my favorite parts of the hike.

We spend the second night with a family. They cooked us a wonderful meal and we spent the evening roasting marshmallows and hanging out with their four boys, ranging in age from 1 and a half to 13. The thirteen year old played the guitar, including a Guatemalan verion of Ode to Joy. Pretty cool. We woke up the next morning at 3:30, and walked along a paved road to a lookout point over Lago Atitlan, where we watched the sunrise and ate breakfast. From there it was two and a half hours of downhill with an optional hike up a hill called Nariz Del Indo, which looks like a nose. From there we had spectacular views of the lake, as well as the joys of having hiked up yet another steep hill. We swam in the lake, I collected more shells (this time taking care to cover my back, which had, by the way bubbled and peeled. Yuck.), and then hopped on a lancha over to San Pedro. After lunch we left most of our group in San Pedro, and then hopped in the back of a pick-up truck for the two hour ride back to Xela. We were lucky in that there was no road construction, and less lucky in that it poured. Apparently we are trying to make the trip between Xela and the lake as many ways as possible. We have taken a chicken bus, walked, and now ridden in a pick-up. Next I am planning on taking a boat.*

Overall, the trip was well worth it. I hadn't been backpacking for years, and this has definitely renewed my interest in it. What was interesting about this hike though was the purpose for the trails. In the states all the trails I've hiked on are there as fire trails, or specifically there as hiking trails. These trails, while looking pretty similar, are actually in use by the people leaving near them. We pulled to the side of the trail several times so that local folks could get by with their huge loads of firewood or corn, which they carry tied to their heads. It definitely put our trek in perspective.

We got back to Xela around 5 and settled into our apartment (great place with a kitchen!), and dined on yet more papusas and atol. Yum. Today is a simple day with simple errands of internet, shopping, and trying to find volunteer opportunities and good things to put in our tummies.

*Note: There is no body of water that connects Xela with the lake.

From the lake...And back...

We left the lake yesterday on a chicken bus to Xela. Xela, the name that everyone calls Quetzaltenango, is Guatemala's second biggest city, and is located in the Highlands. The ride here was lovely. Chicken busses are actually really nice. Their well maintained, cheap, and frankly pretty pimped out. They are brightly colored and kept really clean, and they are decorated inside and out with information about Jesus, such as the fact that only he can change your life, and that he is coming, so prepare yourself. The scenery was lovely though. We drove into the mountains and the whole lake was spread below. Then it was patchworks of crops and little towns, and of course the obligatory road work.

Xela is nice, so far. The central park is pretty, although we haven't spent much time in it yet. After finding our hostel (and learning that there is not actually work there for us, as we expected...) we ventured into the mercado. There we ate at a comedor, where we sampled vegetable soup with huge whole vegetables, rice, and thick plain corn tamales. We've gotten more bold in our culinary choices, as breakfast yesterday was purchased off the street, and was quite tasty and cheap as well.

The big goal now (how did TFA language slip in there?) is to find something to do for the next couple of weeks. Cheka and Phoebe are still looking for long term volunteer opportunities, while my schedule really only permits shorter ones. To this end we went to a benefit dinner for an organization called Quetzaltrekkers. Volunteers lead people on hikes, and the proceeds go towards a school and orphanage for street children. The dinner itself was awesome. All the food was donated by local restruarants, and it was held at the house where all of the guides live. Cheka and Phoebe are actually thinking of becoming guides, and so all of us are leaving tomorrow on a three day hike BACK to the lake so that they can check it out.

Last night we dined with a bunch of foreigners, smoked a hooka on couches covered in cat print sheets, and then walked out onto the streets of Xela. We walked towards out hostel with the sounds of 80's pop fading behind us. We're realizing through our travels what a strange place Guatemala is. There's this strange undercurrent of backpackers/tourists. My understanding is that many countries have this backpacking culture. But to me, this one seems somehow unsettled, new, like things haven't had a chance to shake down.

I am a triathalete

Well not really, but we were pretty active today, a nice switch from lazing around in the sun, as enjoyable as that was. Today we hiked from Santa Cruz, where we are staying to San Marcos, where we are not. It did take about three hours, and was a nice mix of hard uphill, slippery downhill, rock scrambling, and flat trail. There were points where it felt exactly like hiking in the East Bay with tall brown grasses. Pretty much the whole time we had a wonderful view of the volcano ringed lake. It was sunny and sparkly, and from where we were we could see boats and towns and random crops high up on the hills. It was lovely, although more often than not one of us would trip while trying to both walk and take in the view.

I did not have my aura read in San Marcos. Instead we got lunch (tofu and cheese sandwhich, who would have thought...) and then headed to the shore. We rented kayaks and paddled around the edge of the lake. We swam right off of the kayaks, which seemed like a great idea until it was time to get back in. Leah pulls herself up onto the kayak, Leah falls headfirst into the water. Adventures in clumsiness, I suppose. On our way back two of my traveling companions hollered at a naked guy bathing on the shore, and of course we met up with him not five minutes later. Adventures in something...

Tonight we´re checking out a different hotel for dinner, and tomorrow we´re going to go check out a different town on the lake. Becky leaves from there, and then we take off for Xela.

Since Becky showed up, I have been dedicated to keeping this trip Guate, and it is going very well. We did some bargaining in the market, visited a macadamia nut farm, and climbed an active volcano. We got not three feet from active flowing lava, and would have roasted marshmallows on it except that we forgot to bring sticks. This might be obvious, but the lava was really hot. I mean, really hot. As Becky said, it was so hot that you could stick it in your barbeque and cook a chicken.

Yesterday we hopped on a shuttle from Antigua to Lago Atitlan. We're staying at a place called La Iguana Perdida a hostel right on the shores of the lake in a town called Santa Cruz. They've got a big family style vegetarian dinner every night, hot water, and hammocks. It's lush and green, not too hot, and the lake is surrounded by huge mountains. It's really lovely, and might be the thing that actually inspires me to figure out how to post pictures.

Today we spent the whole day lying in the sun. I collected hundreds of tiny white shells, so small that all of them would fill maybe a tablespoon. Along with the shells I also got one hell of a sunburn. Good times, good times.

Tomorrow we're going to wake up early and walk to San Marcos, which is about three hours away and offers such services as massages and aura readings. I'll let you know how it goes...

The Guate Part (pics)

Antigua is a really lovely city. It was at one point the capital, and there are some really nice details to it, such as the fountain in the central park. Stone women cup their bossoms and water streams from their nipples. There are old churches with intricate stone carvings, ruins of other old buildings, and a nice yellow archway. The buildings are low and brightly colored, and the streets are cobble stone. There is definitely an international/touristy feel about the place. There are several books stores that sell primarily books in English, and on every street there is at least one internet place and one travel agency, frequently both in the same building. There are also tons of really cute coffee shops and restaurants. A couple nights ago we watched most of Fight Club at a really swanky bar with comfy couches, tasty crepes, and a huge movie screen. Last night we went out to a great sushi dinner at an American owned place. It was beautifully decorated, the service was amazing, and the sushi was creative and suprisingly good. The guy we went with, the same one we went to the coffee finca with, knows the owner, and we wound up sitting around this beautiful low wood table talking him and drinking mojitos.

One astute reader of this blog e-mailed me and noted that I've seen a lot of the mala part of Guatemala, and it's now time to find the Guate part. So that's the goal.

Our friend Becky showed up today, and I'm officially begining the Guate portion of my trip. We are leaving tomorrow for Lago Atitlan (we have reservations for a hostel that hosts a cross dressing party every saturday...). We're going to check out a number of the towns around the lake and hopefully do some swimming, boating, and laying in the sun. The week after that we head to Xela where we're working for our room and board for a week. After that, it's a little up in the air. My wonderful girlfriend is coming the week of the 14th, and hopefully I'll be able to give her a best of tour.

This really should be a whole separate entry, but I wanted to let you all know that we're officially moving to the Bay Area in August. I'll be attending law school at UC Hastings, and KJ will be persuing her masters at UC Berkeley. I am pumped.

All About Coffee (pics)

Yesterday we visited a coffee plantation right in Antigua. It was only ten minutes from where we are staying, and we went with a guy who is starting a coffee import business in New Orleans.

We went on a tour lead by a guy named Carlos.


First, we watched a short and cheesey video about coffee growing in Antigua. It was fun to see the silly eighties hairstyles, but not all that informative. Next we hopped into a van and drove to the lower part of the actual plantation. It's the end of the harvet season, but there were still plants in all stages. We saw coffee flowers, which look, smell, and taste a lot like honey suckle, and we saw coffee berries, which are green when unripe, yellow when they're getting there, red when their ripe, and shriveled when they're over ripe. First Carlos showed us the actual berry. He had us take them apart and explained that there are four layers that need to be removed before getting to the green bean stage that is ready for roasting. First there's the outer skin, called the cherry layer, then a sort of slimy sticky (and sweet!) layer that I can't remember the name of, then there's the parchment layer, and lastly the the silver layer. The last two layers you really only see once the beans have been dried.

I remember when I worked at Peets hearing about shade grown coffee, and this was indeed shade grown coffee. The trees they use for shade are planted at the same time new coffee plants are planted, but they grow much faster. The tree they use is actually native to Australia, and bears flowers but not big fruit. They used to use mango trees and avocado trees, working a kind of double harvest. The problem with that was that the coffee plants would have to compete for nutrients in the soil, plus fallen fruit would make the soil too acidic. The flowering trees didn't have this problem, plus they have the added advantage of attracting birds, which in turn eat insects that could harm the coffee plant. Pretty cool.



Carlos explained that at this particular finca, the picking season is from November to March. Each bush winds up being picked several times as the berries mature, so the harvest takes a while. The people who pick the coffee berries are mostly indigenous folks from the mountains. He told us that because many of them live far away, they move to the finca for the season and live in refugios, shelters, for the time that they are picking.
Whole families come, and the kids pick coffee too. We were told that the school year is set up for this, (this is similar to why the school year in the states is the way it is too...) and that having the kids work allows the family to make more money, as they are paid by the pound. I'm not sure what to think about all this, because as much as he was trying to frame it well for us, I still see kids working and living in shelters away from home. It's more complicated than that of course. It's different standards and a different way of life. This isn't the United States. This is Guatemala.

Next we moved to the nursery where we saw new plants. They actually make each plant by hand, grafting the more flavorful arabica plant onto the sturdier robusta roots. This is done by hand by four women who can produce thousands of plants each per day. There are several million plants on the plantation, and each has about 8 to 10 years of production before being removed and replaced, so there is a pretty constant turnover rate of plants.






We got back in the van and came to the processing area of the whole deal. There are three aspects to it: wet mill, dry mill, and roasting and packing. During the wet mill stage, all the beans are chucked into a vat of water. The good ripe ones sink, the less ripe or too ripe ones float to the top. The floaters and skimmed off and set out to dry. These are sold to other companies for use in lower quality and instant coffee. The rest of the beans are run through a machine that removes the cherry layer, which is collected and used as fertilizer. They are then put into big vats of water and left for 40 to 48 hours to loosen the next layer off. Once that layer is removed, they are put in the sun for 8 to 14 days. They are on clay tiles and are raked every two hours.




When they are dry, they are put into sacks. Some of these sacs are exported, the parchment and silver layers staying on to increase shelf life. Others stay at the plantation. They are stored in these stacks until they are needed, at which point they are taken to the dry mill. Dry milling removes the parchment (which is saved and used for bedding for the resident mules, which are, by the way, named after U.S presidents and their wives...) and the silver layer in order to bring the bean to the green bean stage. Then another machine sorts the beans by size into three categories, the largest being elephant, the smallest being peaberry, and he middle size the standard size. Then the beans are put onto a conveyor belt and hand sorted to take out any bad beans. After all of this, the beans are sent to roasting and packaging.

Next we checked out the roasting area, which smelled wonderful. Carlos showed us the machinery that roasts, grinds, and packages and then took us upstairs to the tasting room. They have one professional taster who tastes every single batch of coffee before it is sold anywhere. He will spend all day tasting (and then spitting out) coffee. He's got 27 years of experience and can pinpoint problems in a batch anywhere from the picking (too ripe or not ripe enough) to the drying, to the sorting.

We ended the day sitting at the restaurant and drinking, of course coffee.

The other highliht of Antigua is the people we're meeting. It's a very international city (which is bad too, as I've barely spoken spanish here...) with a lot of travelers. We're getting the skinny on the best places to visit and the best places to stay.

Today we go check out Camino Seguro, a possible volunteer place. Antigua is nice, but I'm realizing again what I realized in Mexico. I'm not so good at just hanging out and doing nothing.

Pienso que me quedo aqui....

I left Hotel Backpacker at 5:45 this morning on a bus to Guatemala City. I traveled with a guy named Hernan who had lived at Casa for 8 monthes, and is now starting his own orphanage in San Salvador in El Salvador. He had an amazing time at Casa, and told me all about Christmas when one of the vols dressed as Santa and everyone stayed up late wrapping presents. It was really nice to hear such positive views of Casa, even though I didn't have the same experience.

The trip to Guate was shorter than I expected, and from there I caught a cab and then a chicken bus to Antigua. I have the worst sense of direction, and a walk that should have been five minutes wound up being forty five, and I wound up taking a cab because I just couldn't figure out where the hell I was. Silly. By the way, cobble stone streets are nice, just not in a three wheeled vehicle. Ouch.

It was great to see Cheka and Phoebe again. It felt like it had been months, not weeks. They've talked with other travelers who have had or heard about similarly not so great experiences at Casa. They also talked to travelers who have volunteered at some other organizations that are legit, and that really value their vols. So we will spend some time this week checking out organizations here and in Xela. I'm not going back to Casa. I'm making a clean break. And I feel positive about this decision.

Becky is coming down on Wednesday, and will be here for a week. We're just going to travel and relax, which is really what I need now. I took a hot shower for the first time in weeks, cut my nails, and used some anti piojo shampoo, just as a precautionary measure. I'm trying to get Casa out of my system, and move on.

Leaving Take Two

This whole leaving thing is very complicated. After my visit to Fronteras last Saturday, I went back to Casa ready to leave. I spoke with the volunteer coordinator the next day and told her that it wasn’t for me, and that I was out. She was great and said that she was surprised, and that I needed to do what I needed to do, but ultimately she hoped I would stay. And as soon as I told her I was leaving, and as soon as she told me I could go, I felt like I could stay. And so I did. I spent a week working in Kindergarten, this time not with little Dulce Maria. We played in the park and visited the pigs and chickens and made leaf rubbings. I gracefully handled a situation in which one of my students pooped her pants causing the other teacher to throw up. I discovered that counting down backwards from five is magic in Spanish as well (teachers, you’ll probably understand that a little better than most). It was a pretty good week. I started enjoying my time with the other volunteers a little more, and have even learned to flush the toilet cuando no hay aqua.

The kids at Casa Guatemala are really beautiful too. All kids are, at least to some degree, even when they are crapping their pants. I had activities with the big girls one day last week, and they spent the whole time teaching the little girls to dance, and I used my supercoolheadlight as a strobe light. I’ve spent more time with the boys the past couple of days, and they are awesome too. Two of the older boys built a raft complete with an anchor, a fishnet, and an oar made out of a stick and a ping pong paddle.

Of course there are the monkeys too. There’s a whole huge family of them that hangs out in front of the comedor including a momma monkey who carries a baby on her back. A family of monkeys!! Can you believe it! What luck!

My Spanish is improving too. I’m understanding more and more, and depending on who I’m talking to, am able to actually carry on a conversation. The kindergarten teacher is from Spain, and she’s wonderful and patient, and also just walked into the internet place as I started writing about her. Creepy. I’ve learned that chuca means dirty, culo means butt, and chula means cool, as do calidad and vale.

All of that being said, I think I’m leaving. I’m in Rio Dulce again, this time with all of my stuff. I do not regret my decision to stay another week. I feel like I am making good choices and giving myself lots of chances. Tomorrow I leave for Antigua to meet up with my original travel companions, who are looking for other volunteer opportunities. Technically I am on descanso, and am expected to return next Sunday. We’ll see. If I return to Casa, I will be working as an orientador for the little boys, working with an excellent volunteer. I might try it for a week. If I don’t, I don’t know what I will be doing. I need to see all the cards on the table. I have been vacillating a lot on all of this, and it’s wearing me down a little bit. It’s great though to come online and see the supportive comments and get the supportive emails. I know that I’ve got a crowd behind me all the way, even if I do ultimately wind up with the rats and the maggots again.

Well folks, I've got some pretty interesting news to report. First of all, I want to say that my girlfriend is a total rock star. For those of you who don't know, she, like everyone else in the world, applied to grad school. She applied to Harvard, Berkeley, NY, Brown, Carnegie Mellon and Northeastern. And she got in. To Every Single One. Every Single One. To bring it back to me, I've got excellent taste in women.

So, there's a change of plans. I've been at the orphanage one day short of w eek, and I will be leaving it one day more than a week after arriving. It's not the kids, it's not the job. It's not really even the lack of hot water and electricity or inconsistency in the availability of water. It's just that my heart isn't in it. The kids are really sweet for the most part, and even had a good day on Friday in the classroom. We spent an hour on the field learning how to walk in a line, and then I had a talk with the ninas after lunch during which I learned that when I'm chastising five year olds my Spanish is pretty good. So it's been getting better. But I didn't come all the way to Guatemala for things to just get better. I've been really frustrated at the Casa, and frustrated the week before, and frankly, pretty frustrated traveling before that. I had a nice little life going in Boston before I left, and I didn't leave that life to be frustrated. So, I'm taking off.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing or where I'll be going. There's a big lake here called Lago Atitlan. There are places all around the lake, from hippy towns with space cookies to really traditional towns, I was thinking about heading that way and chilling there for a while. If anybody has any suggestions, I would be happy to take them.

I feel a lot better having made that decision. It's been a tough week. Now all I need to do is let the people here know, and then, pues, me voy!

Escape! (pics)

I wanted to put that title in spanish, but unfortunately, "I escaped!" translates in Spanish into Escape! You have to imagine the accent on the second e.

I´m worried, because I´m loosing my English. This would be a great thing if I were replacing my English with Spanish, but that is not actually the case. Within a few weeks, I will be completely mute. And the world will rejoice.

So, today marks my fourth full day working at Casa Guatemala. To be honest, it´s been up and down. The upside is that many of the volunteers at the Casa are quite nice, interesting, and reasonable people, and not one of them has insisted that I pour them a rum and coke. Also, the kids really are lovely, and ridiculously friendly. They come up to me and ask me my name, although they frequently can´t understand it. The other plus side is that two littlers of piggies have been born in since I´ve been there. Piglets are ugly and scrawny, but in a really cute way.
Another upside is that I've been spending a lot of time with the baby, Dulce Maria, and she´s quite fond of me. Cheka and I have been tag teaming taking care of her, and Cheka has been sleeping with her.

The down side is that every day seems to be a game of what will Leah clean up off of the floor next. Don't read this next part if you've got a weak stomach. Okay, so Casa Guatemala is not exactly equipt to deal with babies. They used to have babies there at some point, but for whatever reason, most of the kids are between the ages of 4 and 14. We have little Dulce Maria there as sort of a special circumstance. Her mom grew up at the orphanage, so much for follow through, and is working at the hotel. So Dulce is there. The problem is, they don't have basic things a baby needs. Like diapers. Little Dulce spent Monday night sleeping with a tshirt fashioned as a diaper. This would not be so bad, except that little Dulce is a sick little puppy, and has a lot of runny poopies. Tshirt do not so much hold runny poopies. So I spent Tuesday morning cleaning baby poop up off the floor. The room that little Dulce sleeps in with Cheka is a big quiet room that used to house the chiquitas when Casa Guatemala housed chiquitas. Nobody really lives there now, except for rats which they are currently trying to get rid of by poisoning them. Today Cheka found to dead rats under her bed. Because she did not find them right away, they were accompanied by a family of maggots. Being the nice person that I am, I clean up the guts and maggots today for Cheka. So we've got baby poop, rat guts, and next, anybody's guess. Sorry folks, I just wanted to get that off my chest.

IT'S SAFE TO READ NOW.

Anyhow. When I'm not taking care of the little one or mopping the floor, I'm working in the kinder class. They just split kinder and pre kinder, and if all goes well, I'll be working with 6 little ones between the ages of 18 months and 4 years. I was not really feeling the love, but today one of the little ones, named Kristi
in fact, climbed onto my lap and fell alseep. I also made up a song in Spanish to the tune of ring around the morning, and I'm writing a good morning song to the tune of Are You Sleeping Brother John.

So it's good. That being said, I make deals with myself to stay one day at a time. Adjustment is hard. Everyone says it gets easier and better with time, and I'm hoping it's true. I'm by no means miserable, I'm just not quite sure why I'm here...

I'll try to post pictures soon!

It occured to me last night that I've been volunteering at a bar. To help orphans. Strange. It's not exactly clear why we have to volunteer at a bar prior to say, teaching kindergarten. The best answer that my fellow travelers and I can come up with is that it is some sort of hazing. We're either bored to tears, or having people yell at us. And in case there was any confusion, I am not a bar tender. In fact, last night I was told that I should never be a bar tender. I absolutely agree. I'm not the only misfit bartender though. Last night one of my friends, and I'm not going to say who, was drinking a Cuba Libre, then made a Cuba Libre for a customer, and then gave her Cuba Libre to said customer. That's personal service for you.

When I'm not getting in the way at the bar, I'm in the kitchen, usually washing dishes but sometimes buttering pans or making lopsided tortillas. The kitchen is actually pretty great. Chef is this round guy who wears a chef hat, looks like a muppet, and likes to say "oh my god" and "I'm sorry" in English and cracks up when I repeat the words back to him. He and the other guys who work in the kitchen are sweet, and it's fun to try to banter with them, although the language sometimes presents a challenge.

Tonight is our last night as volunteers at Hotel Backpacker, and I can honestly say that I am not at all sad to say goodbye. It's one more crazy night of drunk volunteers and more Gallo beers than you can shake a stick at. This has been one of the slowest weeks of my life. Not the hardest, not the longest, just the slowest.

Watch out, Casa (pics)

Pues, llegamos! Last Saturday after a surprisingly uneventful bus ride we got dropped off in Rio Dulce at Hotel Backpacker. We met up with Michael, a rather strange and drunk Canadian who gave us the lay of the land. Sort of he showed us our room (dormitory style, right above the kitchen), told us our hours (6pm-1am), and told us that we would be busy that night because Saturday is one of the nights the volunteers come over from the orphanage. Baptism by fire, he said.

I spent most of the first evening washing dishes with El Chef in the kitchen. Not so bad, but tiring. It was then out to the bar where 20 or so drunk volunteers painted a rather bleak picture of Casa Guatemala, our soon to be home. Based on that evening and conversations with vols heading out on descanso (vacation), it really sounded like a retched place. It was all about unflushed toilets and pig smelling quarters and lice. By Monday, I was about ready to get a ticket home. But yesterday we finally visited the orphanage, and it was great! Yes, the water is only on in the morning and the afternoon, so toilets don’t always get flushed. Yes, the volunteer house is right next to the pig house, but it doesn’t smell so bad.
And yes, all of the big girls do have lice. But it seems like a nice place. It’s right on the water, the kids get three meals a day, they’re laundry is cleaned, and they’re getting an education. It’s not like anything you would ever see in the United States by any means. There is far less supervision, rules don’t seem to be that tight, and even the little ones have a lot of independence. But this isn’t the United States. It’s Guatemala.


We start working there on Sunday, or Phoebe and I do (Cheka’s joining us later because she has friends coming who are traveling). This is good because working at Hotel Backpacker is bleak. We’re either being yelled at for not understanding what’s going on when it’s busy, or bored to tears, sitting at an empty bar watching the clock. I can’t wait to get out of here.

Once we’re there, Cheka will be an orientador for the Ninas Grandes, which means she gets them up, keeps them fed, keeps them clean and puts them to bed. Phoebe is in charge of an adorable baby, 16 month old Dulce Maria, and I’m going to be teaching Kindergarten. I watched the class for a little bit the other day when I visited, and the kids are cute, but crazy. I think I’m going to have to go in there and raise some hell.

Today we took a crazy clattery chicken bus, complete with chickens, to Finca Paraiso. It’s a cold river with a hot, hot, waterfall. I’m looking forward to more of that…What I’m not looking forward to is work tonight. It’s Wednesday night, and the Vols are coming. Wish me luck.

Exchange rates

As some of you might know, not all countries use the same currency. Strange, I know. Those of you who have traveled have probably had the experience of trading some familar cash for cash that looks a whole lot like monopoly money. We were just getting used to the peso when tada! Here we are in Guatemala with the Quetzal. Mexico was nice because the exchange rate was nice and tidy, ten pesos, one dollar. Move the decimal point, and you got it. And the quetzal? Eight to one. Math is hard.

There is also a sort of hidden exchange rate as well, that being the time exchange rate. A 10 minute bathroom break on the bus-that-sounds-like-it-is-full-of-tin-cans-but-is-actually-just-really-about-to-break is actually a 30 minute period to time for the driver to disappear and the jostled international tourists to roam around looking, well, foreign. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind it. I'm down with sitting outside the bus waiting for it to go. I'm okay with driving in circles for no clear reason prior to leaving, and I enjoy the opportunity to look at cows while a tire is changed. I'm not being cynical. I really don't mind.

Anyway. After a longer than expected ride, we have made it to Guatemala. The land is truly beautiful, at least what we have seen so far from the windows of the bus. It's just so green. No other word for it right now. Just green.

Tomorrow we take our last bus for a while from here in Flores to Rio Dulce, where we will finally be able to set our packs down for more than a few days. We volunteer at Hotel Backpacker for two weeks. This is required of all volunteers in the children's village so that we can, according to the folks running both things, get used to the food and and the climate. Then after two weeks we go across the river and move into the children's village, where we will be...who knows...playing with children, hopefully.

My Life is Complete

Ladies and gentleman, my life is complete. I am someone with ambitions, with goals. I decide that I want something, and I may not be the most direct about it, I may not be the most logical, I may get frustrated or discouraged, but when I have a goal I reach it. And I have reached a goal, and for all intents and purposes, my life is complete. I have seen a monkey. In the wild. Swinging from trees. But that's not enough! Not only did I see one large full grown howler monkey watching us and pooping from the branches, I saw a baby monkey. That's right. A baby monkey. Check plus, life complete. It's so easy to make me happy.

We left San Cristobol yesterday after a hoppin night out on the town. One of my travel companions keeps getting confused about the day, thinking it's always Friday, and with good reason. Tuesday night and we were at a nice little bar dancing our butts of to Mexican ska. Mexican Ska! Cheka, being the stud that she is, managed to get the owner to let the band play for an extra hour! Oh the things you can do when you put your mind to them. See. Goals. Speaking of goals and Cheka being a stud, she just got accepted to COLUMBIA, HER TOP CHOICE SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL WORK! Watch out New York. I mean it.

Right. Leaving San Cristobol. We arrived at our little jungle paradise after five rough hours on the bus (to be fair, I slept the whole time, but I hear that they were five rough hours...). We're staying at a place called El Penchen. It's four an a half kilometers from the ruins, and probably the same distance from town. It looks like a silly jungle movie set with stone paths leading to the cabana rooms. But there's hot water and toilet seats which are my two signals of a nice place to stay. We fell asleep last night to the sound of live music coming from the restaurant, and woke up this morning to the sounds of birds screaming bloody murder.

We decided to walk up to the ruins, and along the way came across a gentleman offering to sell us psychodelic mushrooms. We declined. We joined a tour group for a tour of the jungle and then a tour of the ruins. Our guide was great. Funny, and full of facts. Did you know that the Maya diagnose diabetes by having the afflicted person pee on an anthill? If the ants take to the pee, sugar in the urine. They treat diabetes with clove tea, which he had us smell. He also found the leaf of a plant that smelled like rootbeer. It's used to treat the liver "after too much tequila." Plus he encouraged us to sample the jungle cuisine including termites ("eat the animal, not the clay") and fresh water snails ("you put it in your mouth and it finds its own way down."). Neither of my travel companions was willing to partake, even after my generous offer of a dollar, so we only heard second hand how it was. Our guide also talked about Mayan culture, specifically about the ceremonies wherein young women would pierce their tounges, and young men their penises ("you're out of service for a couple of weeks") The blood was an offering to mother earth, and it was a great honor to do it. To dull the pain? Mushrooms. Indeed, we talked quite a bit about the mushrooms, but alas, no samples. Not the kind of guided tour talk I used to hear on trips with my family...

Tomorrow we leave for Flores, Guatemala. A van picks us up at 6 in the morning, then we get to Betel (I think) and get on a boat. We'll probably spend the night in Flores, and then it's off to Rio Dulce, Casa Guatemala!

Now we're getting somewhere....

We've been in Mexico a little more than a week now, and it seems that we're finally getting things going. We spent the first few days in the first few towns sort of roaming around randomly, aware of the cultural things available to us, but not really doing any of them. Now that we're in Chiapas, in San Cristobol, we're starting to pick it up.

Yesterday we went to Na Bolom. Na Bolom is was started by two people, Gertrude Dudy and Franz Blom. Trudy came to Mexico in the 1940's to escape the perils of WWII. She had been a journalist and held in a Nazi work camp. She began to study the Lacondons, a Mayan group that had been untouched and unconverted by the Spanish. Somehow she managed to make good with the Mayan folks to the point that they allowed her to take pictures of them--something that they're not that big on at all. She met up with Franz Blom, who had been in southern Mexico looking for oil, I believe. According to our tour guide, the spirit of the area came to him and he decided to be an archeologist instead. The two met randomly on an airfield, and moved in together in Mexico City, where they hung out with the likes of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

In the 1950´s, they dropped 1,100 bucks on a big old haunted hacienda in San Cristobol. They used the house as a home base as they continued to study and photograph the Mayan people. Trudy lived in the house until she died in the early 90´s. During their time there they established a foundation to support and educate the Mayan culture. Volunteers come down for six months at a time to work there, working on health projects out in the towns, providing health care to the Mayan people, educating tourists and locals about Mayan customs, and growing and distributin 10,000 trees a year for reforestration. They also print and archive Trudy's 55,000 photographs. Pretty fricking incredible, if you ask me. Check out the website at NaBolom.org. It appears to be all in spanish, but you can navigate around and look at pictures.

Today we went up to Chamula, and indigenous town outside of San Cristobol. It was during carnival, so there was a huge public market and men dancing and playing accordians, and fireworks going off. We saw men wearing white sheep skin poncho type things, and women in dark grey sheep skin skirts tied with colorful scarves. Women and kids were carrying babies around on their backs, which I simply can't get enough of. These little ones seem so content just hanging out and looking around.

Tomorrow we have plans to visit a museum of Mayan medicine which promises a video on Mayan midwifery that is only for the strong stomached. Just my cup of tea.

San Cristobol is very nice. It was really cold and drizzly yesterday, but now it's warm and happy. We spent yesterday evening in a cafe playing snakes and ladders and listening to this duo on guitar and drums. We had red wine and capuchinos with liquor. I swear if a place like this was in the states, I'd be there everyday. The best part of San Cristobol? They serve coffee and alcohol everywhere.

My favorite thing about Puebla...

So, as you might know, we're spending a few weeks traveling around Mexico prior to moving to Casa Guatemala, the orphanage where we'll be working. We've got quite an list of places to visit. We started out on the coast, and then moved in. We spent a few days in a city called Puebla. Do yourself a favor and google it, look at some pictures. There are tons of these crazy gilded catholic churches. We even saw a wedding, complete with cutie patootie little girls holding up the train of the dress. And since it was a public church, we went inside for the ceremony! Crazy! Outside in the plaza there was a baby who had just been baptized, and the grownups were throwing coins for the kids to pick up. It was adorable. The city itself is really nice. All the streets and brick and the sidewalks stone. The travelers I'm travelling with said that it really reminded them of Spain, which makes a lot of sense since it is a colonial town. We left on Saterday, and there was a brass band playing in the zocalo, which I learned is just the term for the sort of central park. It's a useful thing to know because usually you can find banks and food around the zocalo.

All that being said, my favorite thing about Puebla was the walk signals. For don't walk, the little man is red. When it turns green, there's a coundown, and the little man is walking. It's animated. As the time ticks down, the man walks faster, so by the end the little man is jogging. Totally my favorite part of Puebla. That and there was a yarn store and I got some shiny brown yarn. Mixing up the familiar with the new. But mostly just sticking to the familiar.

It occurs to me that I've mostly been writing to myself, since I haven't actually told anyone where this blog is. So, I guess I'll go do that. Welcome!

Feliz Dia!

Valentine's Day in Mexico. There were all sorts of flowers for sale on the street, and when I left the hotel early in the morning to make phone calls, there were men with flowers in the baskets of their bikes. Very charming. I guess people really do it up around here. All these girls between about 13 and 20 were walking around with flowers and plastic windowed pink and red boxes, stuffed animals, decorated bags. Very sweet. On the bus from Zihuatenejo to Cuernavaca, we saw the same thing. People kept saying happy day, in english. it was cute.

And we survived our first long bus ride. It was actaully very nice on a very nice mostly airconditioned bus (yet for some reason all of us still felt sick for a lot of it.) The timing was good though. We drove through all the little towns during the daytime, so we got to see the country. I'm afraid that describing it will just sounds silly, because it's exactly what you'd expect to see--old men in hammocks, little kids chasing dogs, little road side stands selling sweets. Each stop we made there would be a woman right outside the door selling enchiladas or empenadas. We stuck to the tortillas and bananas that we brought with us.

Cuernavaca is pretty nice. It's mostly just a big city. It's striking though how, here at least, commerce is a little different. Instead of the superstores with everything, there are lots of little stores that sell specific things. A store for dills. A store for clothes. A store for paper. A store for shoes. A farmacia just sells medicine. A food store mostly just sells food. Phoebe says it's a little like New York City. There are supermarkets too, to be sure, but there are fewer of them, and the ones that I've noticed are outside of the city.

Today we will get on a bus to go to Puebla, which is a colonial town. Or something like that. I've left it in the hands of Cheka and Phoebe to decide where we're going. I'm looking forward to getting to the orphanage. Travelling is nice, but it feels a little...useless, in a way.

here we are!

so, yes, we made it to mexico! we're in zihuatenejo right now and have some plans for travelling, some of which involve ten and half hour bus rides. which honestly doesn't seem that bad to me. i like sitting in small spaces. and i've always got my cross stitch and books on tape (old lady).

i've never really done a blog before, and chances are it will be exactly what one friend predicted. an entry saying that there's too much to say, and then nothing after that. although, there's not all that much to say. yet. we're here, we confused some lady by wanting to just buy bananas, and we're going other places soon. i think we're all a little out of it, although not in the too tired sort of way, just in the realizing that we're in another country way. which is weird. and not quite real.

You asked for it....

...and in the words of my most favorite lady SUCKA!!!!!!!!