Crappy Jan. -Mid winter blues?

My apologies for not blogging for a while. What a crappy January. I´ll try sum it up in bold, if you want the quick and dirty.

My family came to visit. Awesome to spend time with them. Highlights were kayaking in lago de Atitlan, supposedly one of the most beautiful lakes in the world and just getting to see my family, especially so close to Christmas when the need for family is amplified. I missed playing games with them and conversing about normal things. We traveled with a Phil´s family, so we had a big group, which ended up being really stressful. Mostly because...

We just about died on a volcano. The guide told us to keep going up, as we looked to our left at a group of tourists molten lava boulders came tumbling down at them- we were higher up and out of the way, so we figured we were fine. Again, our guide told us to climb up. I waited with my mom and sister. Then the guide came down a bit and said in Spanish- there are two rivers of lava coming, go down. We started going down, but didn´t realize we should have run-cause the boulders were coming. The group split in two and boulders fell in between us, spitting off lava every time it bounced. The guide didn´t count how many people there were, and Phil´s mom and brother were on the bad side. Phil´s brother and a Guatemalan kid dove opposite ways to evade a dishwasher sized boulder. One rock hit the kid in the foot, melting his shoe and burning his foot. So he helplessly laid on the ground yelling, help me help me. I didn´t know what to do. Feeling unsure and helpless, I froze. I wish I could have thought back to WFR and remembered that if the scene is not safe, you don´t go into the situation. Crazy.



Then we left Ellory in Xela, an excellent city, where she will be studying until May. She has a pretty great host family and her host mom makes her fresh squeezed orange juice every day. Lucky! And they have a great Indian food restaurant there. God I miss Indian food. I took mom back to the airport where I forgot to get my books and chacos back from her, bummer. Then I waited for Amber to come... 3 hours later.

I am single. Amber decided to come visit me even though she had started dating someone else a month ago, without telling me. Really messed up. I felt horrible because I felt like I had sacrificed a lot, especially over the summer, she did too a tiny bit, but monogamy was one of them. I guess I feel a great loss, because she used to be a really great person. It was really painful. But at least now the source of pain is gone, even though the residue persists. To make matters worse, while leaving her in Antigua, I laid down crying alone in the back of a truck and my wallet slipped out, so I lost $65. I went back to Xela to spend time with Ellory, which I needed. She is an amazing person who I am extremely lucky to have, not only in Guate, but in my life. I received lots of good advice-especially from my wise man-savant on the mountain-Rene McGraw. Thanks to everybody for being there.

Then Phil and I took a girl to Tegulcigelpa, Honduras for surgery. It was a lot of running around getting documents, blood work, and x-rays. We drove 12 hours to get there. Communication was pretty poor and partially because our phone didn´t work. We bought it a week ago. Dumb. Phil and I stayed in basically hospital overflow, with 40 beds in a room, a bottom sheet (who knows if it was changed or not), and people clearly saw the dollar sign tattooed to my forehead, but didn´t want our food when we offered it to them. So we left that after our most stressful day so we could have a place to get a beer and watch TV. The stressful day- during the surgery the mom sat outside. We watched the surgery, actually I watched 10 min. and felt lightheaded. When it was done, we told her everything went better than expected, she had a seizure. So now we have two patients. She peed on the floor while her body shut down and it took 20 minutes for anyone to clean it up, even though the hospital has 15 custodians with mops, constantly mopping the floor. the hospital didn´t have the personnel to care for seizures, so no one did anything. So we felt helpless again. Anyway the rest of the trip was fine, except when Phil and I were walking home, some random guy from the street ran up behind me and slapped me on the arm as hard as he could. WTF? And Jen Arnold, a friend of mine was there the day before we came, and was coming back the day after we left, bummer.


For the first time, it felt really really good to be back in Esquipulas.

Inaguration Day was awesome. I had the abbot make an announcement that the ¨gringos¨ would have a little celebration of their new president after lunch. We took the monks outside where we had two pinatas waiting. We told them that we are welcoming the new president but also booting out the old one. So we handed out shoes to throw at the Bush pinatas. Not only were the monks a better shot than I expected, but the abbot picked up the semi-imploded head from the ground and started kicking it wildly. Guess W. wasn´t too popular anywhere. The next day in the paper there was a editorial cartoon with Obama being sworn in on the left, and 5 shoes being thrown at Bush on the right. Perfect.


I´ ll do a better job of keeping this up- sorry.

Renewing the Visa

Thankfully that doesn´t mean my credit card.

Its been 90 days. Maybe I should reflect in thirds, but right now- I am still trying to piece together my last week and 90 seems daunting. I traveled to Tikal, the Mayan ruins. All I really have to say is ¨Damn how´d they do that?¨ Answer: slaves. It was big, it was beautiful, it was hot. I missed the bus (felt like all 4 years of college flooded back to me in an instant) and walked around the small town trying to find it. I found the bus company and met two people who lived 10 miles from Phil. Weird. I spent the rest of the day with Karen, Dave, and Phil. Cool people, she traveled a lot and said I had her son´s spirit. So I got that going for me. We saw howler and spider monkeys. Both deserving of their name. A kid kept screaming at the howlers. Made my day.

It was really nice to sit on the roof of our hostal in hammock and eat avocados with my jalepeno cheesy bread. But we had to leave Tikal. On to San Ignacio. I got Indian food and watched tv. That is all. And I found a rope swing, on a wild goose chase to try find falls in Bullet Tree Falls, they have a river, no falls. WTF? My side still hurts from multiple belly whoppers.

Onto the better part of Belize. Placencia- a beach town with nothing to do. Word from our friends was we could find Bill and Lisa and camp on their beach. With terrible directions we walked about the whole island to find it was a camping place, not friends who would let us camp on their beach. We made friends with two Geographists from Vancouver, traveling by bike. They had good travel advice. I spent more or less the entire next day finishing my book- The Thunderbold Kid, swimming, and making a sandcaslte. We met some Brits on the way their, as naturally one would in a bus where people are prohibited beyond the white line in the US, but there you pack 7-10 people in front of the line. Capacities don´t exist here, only limits to your comfort. So we went out to get drinks and I had a Belizian long island with- get this 10 types of rum. Yum rhymes with rum for a reason. They speak Creole (lazy unrecognizable English) in Belize. Did you know rum also makes blood squishy and therefore it is easier to sleep on sand, but it doesn´t stop you from waking up to rain on your face.

We went on a nature hike the next day. I saw leaf cutter ants, some cool and really big trees, and one of the plants they think may help fight cancer. Then while tubing, I made friends with more Brits, a couple and 2 kids- Kye and Cici. They loved shakeface and my really bad elephant jokes. Cici (8) said with a confused face ¨You have funny jokes (meaning peculiar and not funny). Then we did some rock sliding on smooth rocks into ponds. the guide went first. After Kye went he said, ¨He made it look really fun, but it wasn´t! I miss kids, british accents too.

Then I renewed my faith in Gelato, and traveled for 12 hours home to Esquipulas. On the way home I read, The Jaguar Smile. It was good, but Salman Rushdie is a man of fiction. Merry Christmas. 4 days until I see my family. I love it.

I can live a normal life again

I read The Pillars of the Earth this week... all week. It was all I did. Now if I weren´t in Guate and a frickin goon I could live a normal life. I´ll settle for whatever this is.

Best part of the week and maybe year was today before class. A girl, the most attractive girl in the class I might add (at 18), came up to me and asked me a question. ¨Que significa the palabra...¨ or what do the words mean (and with perfect pronunciation) ¨...do me.¨ Phil and I glanced at each other and I burst out laughing hysterically in front of the class. 5 min later when I regained a semblance of composure I explained that she meant dummy, not do me. I wrote do me on the board and the significance is the same in spanish. She shook her finger at me and said ¨Que malo¨ that´s bad. Class is fun. Only one week left.

I hate that I have the gene that allows me to smell the funny sent of urine after eating asparagus.

The basilica got some big award this week, so it became a bigger deal to go here now. It also won the nationwide contest, making it the number 1 marvel in Gautemala.

We started working on some bigger projects. Mostly the initial boring parts. I am looking for grants and am stoked that I might apply for the CAPTAIN PLANET grant. YES! Things I want to do- get books in the library, as well as solar panels and a computer. Also I want to get a water reservoir (basically swimming pool for drinking) built.

I got really into limericks after finding a book from 1961 in the library. They are dirtier than three whores in a chimney. I may or may not have stolen that from one of the limericks.

I found out that Fr. Don put my blog on the email that goes out to the all the alumni. He knows more people than a Wal-mart greeter. I can´t believe I write this crap- sorry mom.

Nothing happened this week

So I´ll add the parts that I forgot to mention about last week. As I was the assistant pharmacist last week, I translated the directions on how to take medicine. I did well overall, but I made two mistakes. I didn´t want to confuse people so I didn´t want to say ¨take three pills a day,¨ where people have taken three at a time and had problems. So I told them to space them out. I mistakenly told one man to take one in the morning, one with lunch, and one with a movie (cine, not cena). That man will have to watch a movie a day if he wants to avoid backpain.
I told another man with an ear ache, to put his head in the shade, put in two drops, wait ten minutes and then flush it out with water. I meant to say, put your head to your shoulder. Whoops.

If you want to read the blog from the professionals and see a lot of pictures, go to- http://international.chwhealth.org/chw_medical_missions_blog/2008/11/index.html

Since it is Thanksgiving, I´d like to take the time to mention what I am thankful for-
As always top three are what make thanksgiving so great (and life)
1. Family
2. Friends (especially those who have been in touch, having people let me know they think about me makes life so much easier).
3. Food- I miss grandma´s onion dish right about now. But I am loving Sweet thai chilli sauce, avocados, and Gallo.
4. A new president -Give me a woo woo.
5. Practical jokes. I haven´t pulled many around here, but I screw around in the library a lot and really want to take a monk statue and put in somewhere conspicuous.
6. Mini squirtguns
7. Candy- m&mś this year
8. Traveling to random places and then not only picking up trash with some girl I just met, but then finding a bar with swings. I want to throw in handstands and doing whatever the heck I wanna do, gosh.
9. Crashing someone elses party on a party bus with doctors
10. When the cue ball actually rolls 200 degrees around another ball on the crooked pool table here, no wonder I can´t win.

Cashews, volcanoes, and an unlicensed pharmisist

Steakhouse flavored Cashews. My mom sent them to me. I looked at the ingredients. #2 is crack, and 3 is MSG, so they are addicting and taste good. But I am out. Christmas presents?

Phil, a monk, a sister and I hiked up a volcano (Ipala). It was great. The scenery was good, the climb was nice and best part- a lake in the top that we could swim in. All the locals said it was dangerous because it was deep. I take that to mean ¨I can´t touch the bottom, so don´t go in.¨

A medical mission came to for a week. It was inexplicable, but here it goes. We traveled to the nearby aldegas and set up a mini hospital in the clinics or schools. By the end of the week we had served 14oo people. Several were people who just needed pain relievers because they work hard. But others seriously needed professional help. One girl´s feet were so disformed she was actually walking on what should be the tops of her feet. But the one that took the cake was while I was at lunch. Sorry about the bad selection of words, it isn´t a contest, but food fits in. So I went to the church to take a break and eat. It was so hot out the three block walk made me feel even more exhausted. I leave and of course get lost- it´s three blocks- wtf? I find my way and go back to the pharmacy. Janet, my surrogate mom for a week, says ¨Did you see it?¨ What am I in for? She takes me out into the hall where 8 people are gathered around a 9 inch long roundworm in a cup. Thank god the kid was 7 and probably didn´t understand everything going on, because I never want people to take pictures of what I throw up. I want to do a project with water quality so that doesn´t happen any more. Seems worthwhile.

Besides that, the mission was great. We went out every night to eat and drink, variety and beer was great. It made me forget my butt hurt from riding in the back of a truck for 2 hours with 6 other people following another truck by 15 feet down dusty roads. But the best part was I felt like I was directly helping people instead of the slow progress that comes with teaching English. I also got to play with kids and hand out glasses to old ladies. The doctors were fun and lively and left us M&M´s. For example, we went back with them to Guatemala City and we got on a Gallo Bus. Gallo is the beer here. They pack people in, the bus cruises around town slowly while you drink and dance. Most of the people were old enough to be my parents. I think I am going to invest in starting this in the US. Again, inexplicable- so I´m done trying.

Impecable TIming

No words can really explain how I feel about this weekend. Refreshing, needed, perfect. We hit a 30 second window right away when the English teacher at the school allowed us to hitch a ride with him as we were heading to the bus station. He took us to the next stop and 2 buses later we made it to Copan. After getting a little hustled and played for hotels, (the only bad part of the weekend), we met up with Phil´s friend who is volunteering in Honduras. We went to the Ruins in Copan which are some of the most complete in central america. As awe inducing as they were, I just enjoyed the peace of the place. There is way to much noise in Esquipulas and just to have 3 hours of quite felt different.

I started talking to another gringo (thank god for the attraction to familiarity). He informed us that every year the Peace Corps volunteers overwhelm the city on halloween weekend. This weekend was pushed back 2 weeks (unknownly) and the timing was perfect. They needed the weekend as much as we did. To put it lightly, we went out. Live bands, swings at the bar, lots of costumes, and a makeshift ¨change you can believe in¨ sign. We met up with Phil´s friend´s friends randomly, again good timing.

I slept in...to the afternoon. After recouperating and watching a really bad movie on tv we decided to go to the waterfall. Some guy doing laundry wanted to do the waterfall trip and we met up with him- I don´t know how. We didn´t want to pay the 9 bucks each (highway robbery here) for the ride, so we decided to find it ourselves with public trans. Luckily the freinds from the night before were on their way home and knew the way, we would have never found it. No signs, nothing. Again amazing timing.

The falls were spectacular. No one else was there, the rocks were worn from the water. I felt like I found my paradise. We discovered the water treadmill, where you can simply swim in place against the current. I wish we would have had all day and picnic supplies.

To close a brief note about buses. At first I thought public trans. was terrible and unorganized. Now I love it. You don´t have to wait long (I have always waited longer in the US for buses), it is cheap because everyone uses it. BUT, everyone use it. That means in something larger than a minivan, but smaller than a 16 passenger we fit in (and out cause people hang out the open door) 32 people. When I get home I want to try fit in 9 in my car. Maybe that is why Guatemalans are small- so they can fit more in a bus?

Refreshed, alive, and needed.

Babes, bikes, brujos and students

It´s been a while, sorry. The weeks seem to go by faster now that we are teaching English classes. We have about 15 students on top of teaching our old orange orchard boss and the guys in the library English. We play a lot of games but Hangman is great for the alphabet, Simon says for body parts vocab etc. We have one class from 2-3 and one from 3-4. It is fun.

The guys in the library like to goof around a lot, it is good for practicing and becoming confident in Spanish, but I don´t learn a lot of vocab. They are a couple years younger and good stuff. Definitely nice to have someone around the same age.

As for the babes, we saw that they was a bike race coming through Esquipulas last Thursday. Some of the promotion girls wanted their picture with us, we wanted to take some pictures with the girls. The main point of the whole thing was to send the pictures back to a kid volunteering in Central MN, and since we can´t go out much, we had to rub something in.

I missed pumpkin carving this weekend. But I did dress up in rainbow tights and brought cookies to class, those kids are going to have a screwy perception of what Halloween is. Phil bummed a monk´s habit. Brujo is the word for witch, which the monks call me when I play pool with them, really the table is so warped that you can make a shot from anywhere if you know how the ball rolls.

Some students were here this past weekend from the US (studying in El Salvador). A social justice orientated study abroad group. Quite the characters, I hope to visit them in late Nov. One kid, a camp couselour informed us that ¨aplostar¨ (a-plaw-star) is the verb to destroy, stick, and engulf in flames while intoxicated, actually it just means demolish, but it is a good word to know. You can also use it a vulgar way to say stick your butt down to the chair. Bombas is the word for butt too which I get a kick out of. I guess I am finally to the point where I can enjoy the language. Also with the students- who somehow knew more about the place than we did (maybe the fact that they actually got a tour helped)- we showed the monks how to play basketball; we actually only won by one point and it was incredibly intence. And we milked the cows.

We made cookies again- i think they turned out better.