Time for another lovely update on my life in Guatemala…
Since my last blog, there has been quite a bit of drama in my life but also a lot of fun. My sitemate Felicia and I started and have almost completed a world map mural on one of the walls of the middle school in our town. Getting the project started was a lot harder than we anticipated and full of fijese que’s (you wouldn’t believe it but…) and other obstacles such as the 349837438 degree heat (not to mention the fact that of course we chose to do the mural on the one wall that gets the full blast of the sun all day… smart). We also had to deal with the fact that the school is relatively new and still does not have electricity so using a projector to trace the picture had to be done by borrowing a 50 ft extension cord from one of the students, using the building next door for an outlet and dealing with the billions of insects that were swarming around the light from the projector. In the end, we got the tracing done and started painting! Our initial plan was to paint for three hours a day and be done in a week (wishful thinking). That quickly turned into only being able to paint for an hour a day and we are now into our fourth week, but almost finished. There are some pictures up on facebook so you can check out our handy work and admire our extreme artistic abilities (cause tracing and painting inside the lines, as you know, are extremely difficult things to master).
Two weeks ago, I got to take a glorious vacation to Roatán, Honduras and it was so much fun. Emily and I made the trek out there to visit with her mom, who was taking a cruise through central America and making a stop in Honduras for the day so we decided to make a whole adventure out of it and definitely succeeded. It took us about 12 hours to get there via chicken bus (and everyone kept offering us cabs, shuttles, private buses, etc… apparently Emily and I look like tourists, who would have guessed) and one two-hour boat ride (that cost $55 which is 1/8 of our monthly paycheck). Turns out that just cause you can’t feel the sun due to a cool breeze and flecks of water splashing your cheeks, does not mean you aren’t getting burnt. I really hadn’t anticipated sitting in the sun on the boat for two hours (plus I was trying to get a little pre-beach tan) so I didn’t use sunscreen and ended up getting burnt to a crisp before we even made it to the island. It is also worth mentioning that in the town we stayed in the night before we got to Roatán they had a Dunkin Donuts and Wendy’s (which we ate at twice). The island itself was so cute! We stayed in a simple little place (still cost $10 a night, which is a lot compared to the $3 we are used to in Antigua). There were lots of places to eat and go out at night as well as pretty beaches and beautiful views. On Thursday we met up with Em’s mom and went out on a boat and snorkeled. It was amazing! It was my first time so I was a little overexcited but we saw so many cool fish and reefs and even a school of squid (that I swam at aggressively only to have them ink at me in defense). The day ended up being shorter than we expected but it was still great to see Emily’s mom and the vacation overall was for sure a success. Next trip to Honduras will include some more time in Copan to see the famous ruins since we didn’t really get a chance to check that out this time around.
After Honduras, Emily and I made our way to Antigua for In-Service Training (IST) with peace corps. This was actually a great experience. The first couple days were for volunteers and our Guatemalan counterparts (mine could not go at the last minute, which sadly was not that big of a surprise) but I got to work with other groups so it was all good. After the counterparts left, we had a couple of days to do some more hands on training in agriculture, which included building our very own greenhouse, vegetable and medicinal garden and compost bin. The greenhouse took 15 people and two full days to complete so needless to say, I will not be tackling that feat in my site but it was still awesome to learn how it’s done. The gardening tips were also very helpful and I have already started my own worm compost in my house, which I hope to be doing with the women in my communities asap. IST was also great cause we just got to be around our training group as well as a lot of other volunteers, which we don’t really do much of out in the east (seeing as there are only 14 out of 200+ in this area). Now for the drama of IST… Emily basically lost all of her worldly belongings. The first to go was her computer (which also contained her hard drive, internet modem and we would later find out her passport as well). We had just gotten to Antigua and left our bags outside for a friend to watch while we bought four pounds of pasta, butter and garlic powder to make an endless bowl of pasta (we‘re not fat kids), only to return to find that Emily’s computer was gone. At first, we thought it was a joke and that one of our friends really had it and was teasing her but unfortunately it wasn’t. Emily kept it together way better than I would have and just kinda took the loss like a champ, which I admire her greatly for. The next loss (which has since been recovered) was a package sent by her mom containing a computer charger (which she no longer needs) as well as some cash, since we are both destitute after our lavish vacation. Basically it was just one thing after the other during our trip but somehow we still managed to have a good time (duh) and everything seems to be taking a turn of the better now (even though I probably just jinxed it, sorry Em).
Okay, that’s all I have to update on. Hope everyone at home is doing wonderfully and enjoying the summer weather and barbecues :)
