Oh what a long strange week it's been!

Get ready for a long strange post!

Monday I met with the volunteer coordinator from Primeros Pasos, the clinic I'm hoping to volunteer at. Although my Spanish level is currently lower than what they normally take, she seemed optimistic that we could work something out. I am tentatively going to be working with their nutrition program that helps support nutrition education and supplementation for malnourished children in local rural highland communities. If I can start the first week of July I can get a full 6 weeks of volunteering in, so I immediately set about to work on rearranging my schedule. I was scheduled to study at La Escuela de la Montana the first 2 weeks of July, but now I'm headed there for next week leaving tomorrow. There isn't internet at the Mountain School so I'm planning on being non-communicative for the next week which necessitates trying to get a bit ahead in my MGH classes, so that's made it a rather stressful week.

In addition, Monday night I found out I had to change host families on short notice this week. The youngest daughter of my family was 8.5 months pregnant and Monday afternoon found out she was going to need an urgent c-section Tuesday morning (They'd been monitoring her for signs of pre-eclampsia, although her blood pressure was fine, but apparently the baby was breech and there was a concern about the cord being around it's neck). Clearly the family was quite worried and preoccupied and weren't going to be able to continue hosting a student, so I packed up my things Monday night and met my new family Tuesday for lunch. I have since heard that both mom and baby are doing just fine and are home recuperating. I'll put the details about my new family in a separate post because it turned out to be quite long.

Tuesday night I met up with Dani, Erik, and their set of friends for Viktor and Maria's going away party...Just realized I never posted about Dani and Erik and their set of friends. Back story: one of my friends from the MoS, Diana, has a sister, Danielle (Dani) who has been living in Guatemala for a couple of years. Dani and her boyfriend Erik (who is Guatemalan) moved to Xela about 6 months ago. Diana linked me and Dani up via facebook before my trip and I ended up bringing down some things for her and Erik from the states (specifically Lactaid, which you can't get here, and is Erik's lifeline as he's lactose intolerant). My first Tuesday in town they were having a dinner get together at their house with a group of friends and invited me to join them. It's a group that gets together regularly, mostly made up of Erik's friends from University and Dani's friends through various NGOs that operate in Xela. This was before I had a phone, of course, and Dani and I planned that I would meet her friend Ana in Parque Central by the McDonald's and we would travel to Dani and Erik's apartment together. Imagine my surprise when instead of an Ana at McDonalds, there was a young Guatemalan gentleman with an umbrella who introduced himself as Viktor and in thickly accented English told me he was one of Dani's friends, she had asked him to meet me there, and if I wanted to go with him to his apartment there was a whole group of folks heading over for dinner. So that's how I met Viktor, and after we got to his apartment I met his girlfriend Maria, who is Danish, along with 5 or 6 other folks headed to Dani and Erik's for dinner as well.

Fast-forward to this past Tuesday, Viktor and Maria are getting ready to travel to Denmark, and hosted a going away party at a local restaurant. It was a blast, the food was great, and it was really awesome to see how far my Spanish had come along. Erik was impressed, and I got to show off a bit to Viktor which was nice considering our first conversation four weeks ago was so halting. After dinner we all migrated to a local bar, Social - which has darts! and is right next to El Cuartito. I called and negotiated my first taxi all by myself - in Spanish, por supesto (of course) and played a quick round of darts while I was waiting for him to come round. It's the same taxi driver Sarah, another friend in this group, used the night of dinner at Dani and Erik's. She helped me and a handful of others get home that first night and introduced me to Humberto, a very amiable and reputable cabbie, who's number I've had stored in my phone ever since if I need a cab.

Of course, there were other shenanigans to fill up my Tuesday afternoon. Maggie and I popped into Cafe Red to try their hot chocolate con leche and for me to vent and process about having to change families (post with those details is here). Then Maggie, who's here on a trip with 15-20 other students from her university and is acting coordinator, got a call that one of the girls had potentially broken her ankle...and then climbed a volcano over the weekend. We both trekked across town to pay the girl a visit and figure out a planned course of action. Turned out her ankle wasn't broken, just very badly sprained. She'd had a heck of a time with the doctors at the public hospital. I took a look at the xrays and could see that she didn't have any obvious tib/fib or hind-foot fracture, but there were no clear shots of her mid-foot and, in reality, she needed an MRI to be sure of anything. Luckily, her host mom's daughter was an xray tech and was planning on accompanying her to a specialist the following day. It looked like a really bad sprain and I haven't heard that she had to fly back to the states or anything (which she would have had she needed surgery) so I think that turned out OK.

Thursday was quite rough. A family who had been hosting students for the school for a very, very long time - 20 years or so - had a tragic car crash that killed both the mom, Violeta, her mom (the grandmother), and left Violeta's father (the grandfather) in hospital with serious injuries. I have heard that he is ok. Kira, one of the students in my little circle of friends, had been living with this family, although the details are a little complex. For her first three weeks, Kira lived with Violeta (Violeta's children are grown, and her husband passed away many years ago, although my teacher this week tells me that students say she had a boyfriend). Kira's third week, Violeta moved into a new house just on the other side of Parque Central and Violeta's sister moved into her previous house with her husband and two boys. They continued to host Kira, and that's who Kira was living with this week when the tragic car crash occurred. The entire school community has been shaken by the loss. There was a vigil at the funeral home Thursday night and the funeral and burial was on Friday morning. Kira, Jake, and Bryan, who have all spent time with the family (Jake and Bryan are travel buddies, and Jake and Kira have been an item while at PLQ). They all helped Violeta move into her new house just a few weeks ago. Very, very sad series of events.

On top of that, Bryan graduated this week, he and Jake are taking off for Columbia to continue their CA/SA travels, Kira is flying back to the states for her sister's high school graduation - although she's coming back in 2 weeks, and this was Maggie's last official week as well (although she's graduating next week and hanging around for another month volunteering at a local women's weaving cooperative). But in general, my original group of friends is cycling through and I had to say a lot of temporary goodbyes yesterday - Niki, another of our crowd, is also wrapping up her studies this week, although she too is hanging around for another month or two.

We celebrated with a group excursion to Bake Shop during Friday morning classes with our teachers. Bake Shop is a tienda (shop) run by local Mennonites that is open on Tuesdays and Fridays over in Zone 3 - it's about a 20 minute walk from school. They have the best baked goods in Xela, according to Bryan and Maggie - who were both incredulous that it was possible for me to be in Xela for a whole month and not once have visited Bake Shop. Maggie points out the way every time we're in Zone 3 and actually got me a blackberry filled doughnut to cheer me up on Tuesday when I had to switch families. They do have really, really good doughnuts. So Friday morning we all made the excursion to get there for 9am when they open - you really do have to get there early cuz stuff sells out quickly. I got a small pumpkin bread loaf, cupcakes, strawberry doughnut, and peanut butter doughnut (they're filled with a peanut butter filling and glazed in chocolate. strange sounding, but very good) for Q52 (about $8). I shared the cupcakes at the bar last night, and about half of the pumpkin loaf at lunch with my family yesterday, but the remainder will last me until Monday or Tuesday. I'm officially a Bake Shop convert.

My first taste of Bake Shop - the blackberry doughnut Maggie got me on Tuesday.

For those of you keeping track - Tuesday night was Viktor & Maria's going away party, Thursday, aside from the funeral vigil, was soccer and pizza, and Friday is graduation dinner at school (Wednesday was movie night and I ate dinner early with the intention of going, and then promptly fell asleep to the sound of the rain on the roof). Tonight will be my first dinner with my new family...and probably my last as I leave for the Mountain School tomorrow and expect to have a different family when I return.

I realized I had some pictures from my first week of Friday night festivities, and the general outline is the same each week, so here's a few shots of the "band" and the Foosball table (mesa de futillo)

We'll move from right to left. This was a cena tipica, which means staff cooked and students were responsible for drinks. There is always more alcohol available on cena tipica nights. We push all the little study tables together to create one long table for everyone. You also get a lovely shot of the back of Fergle's head (yes, that's his real, given name). This is also the least fuzzy picture of Carlos, our water-jug percussionist and school director, and Saul, guitarist extraordinaire and mi maestro from last week (my week 3).

Didn't realize how fuzzy this photo was but it's the best one I have of the band. Carlos, Saul, and Eduardo, I think, is on rain stick. Dimitri is in the blue and Switkrit (sp?) is in the black sweatshirt. Switkrit is from Nepal, lives in Vegas with his Guatemalan girlfriend, and wanted to improve his Spanish so he could speak to her grandparents. How adorably romantic is that? He graduated last week and taught a bunch of us how to whistle with our fingers. Aside from the Guatemalan Snap and Preterito (past tense) it's the third coolest thing I've learned thus far (although, at the time, it was the most awesome thing I had learned).

The other end of the table looking towards the bathrooms. The gentleman is Errol, my San Franciscian adventure buddy for our epic chicken bus introduction to Guatemala. What I missed in these photos are the lyrics posted on the wall to a couple of the songs we sing just about every week. We always end with Bella Ciao which is catchy and of course embellished with clapping, stomping, and whistling (the link is to the Spanish Wikipedia page. Should be a translate button. Our version of the song is a little different as it's been translated with very basic Spanish)

La Mesa de Futillo! A perennial favorite. The lovely gringa in this photo is KC, another Oregon native who has been living here for several months. She fills in sometimes as student coordinator both at PLQ and the Mountain School when folks are out on vacation. She also bakes fabulous cookies, brownies, and makes a killer Quetzeltecca w/ ginger ale.

This week was an international dinner, it alternates each week. Cena internacional is when the students cook and cena tipica (traditional dinner) is when the staff cooks. As the first week of June heralds the beginning of summer vacation in the states, we've had a massive influx of students. from 15 or so we've grown to 25-30ish. This makes it rather tricky to coordinate the use of the single stove and sink in the school kitchen. I had been absent for my first international dinner two weeks ago with my GI grumblings, and had missed out on Maggie's apparently amazing mac & cheese. Since Maggie had a weekend trip planned with her school group and wasn't around for a repeat performance, Niki and I combined efforts to replicate her recipe (it's actually the same recipe I use when I'm doing a proper baked mac & cheese - it's a cheese sauce with a rue base with the final dish finished off in the oven). I also did an ad-hoc version of one of my family's favorite deserts - affectionately termed "dump cake" after the "dumping" motion made with the 3 main ingredients. It is literally the easiest desert recipe ever. Here, I will reproduce it for you :)

Dump-Cake (or Cherry Pineapple Cobbler if you want to be fancy)
1 large can of crushed pineapple (I think it's the 14oz can)
1 can of cherry pie filling
1 box of yellow cake mix. Vanilla will probably work too. Pick your favorite brand. Or whatever's on sale.
1 stick of butter (1/4lb)
chopped nuts (optional - I don't use them but my mom always did half of her cobbler with walnuts or pecans)

Dump can of crushed pineapple into 9x11 baking dish/pan (or whatever pan you have handy that approximates the volume of a 9x11). Dump in the can of pie filling. Mix so you'll get some pineapple and cherry in each bite. Cover with dry cake mix - literally just open the box and dump it straight on - do not follow the box directions, do not mix anything in the cake mix, just cover the fruit in the pan. Make sure the cake mix is evenly spread out on top. Dot with dabs of butter every 1/2 inch or so - the idea is that the butter will melt and cover the top of the cake mix and help it brown up, there's no exact science, just add butter dots till it looks like the top is sufficiently covered. If you're adding chopped nuts, sprinkle 'em on now. Put in oven that is somewhere around 400. Our oven last night had the numbers 1-5 on the dial - no way to tell the temp. I told Aliza anything between 350-450 was good and we made a blind stab at it - it turned out fine (it's a very forgiving recipe). Bake until top is brown, fruit is bubbly, and you smell the smell that makes you go "oh! right! I have something in the oven! Smells pretty good, I should probably check on it...." Usually 45min-1hr.

So, for my ad-hoc recipe I had to substitute canned peaches and a jar of strawberry jam for the filling since pineapple and cherry pie filling was not available. Also, here we're cooking at high altitude so water takes forever to boil - this probably affected the cooking time but I wouldn't know for sure since I never time it. You don't have to worry about anything rising since it's a dry crumble top. Still turned out delicious - especially when combined with another student's fresh fruit salad. Seriously, you should make it tonight. Pick up some vanilla ice cream if you're feeling decadent. It's great for breakfast too, although I can't say how well it holds up beyond a desert and a breakfast, we always finish it by then.

With the raging success of Niki's and my culinary feats, it was time for the graduation presentations. Bryan had been telling us for the past week and a half that he was planning a game for his graduation. No amount of pleading or cajoling would get him to reveal any more details. As an added mystique, he showed up to dinner having shaved the totality of his 6 weeks worth of facial hair growth - except for his moustache. Everything finally made sense when he came to the front of the room and ceremoniously hung up his hand-made jeopardy board. He split us into three teams - to buzz in to answer we needed to do the Guatemalan Finger Snap which is a bit tricky to pick up (You put your middle finger and thumb together, relax your pointer finger, and then flick your wrist. Your pointer finger slaps against your middle and thumb to make the snap. It's all in the wrist, and I find it helps to tuck my ring and pinky away, just like I was going to snap American style). The questions (answers?) were all movie quotes translated into Spanish. We had to answer with the Spanish translation of the title of the movie the quote came from. Example: "Yo se Kung Fu!" = "I know Kung Fu" from the Matrix (which is the same name in Espanol). "Tu vas a necesitar un bote mas grande." = "You're going to need a bigger boat." From Jaws, which is Mandibula (or Garras to be more precise). It was a blast! The staff really got into it too. Our team was number 2 and we had one of my teacher's grand kids on our team, a girl of 11 or so, who totally got the final Jeopardy question for us (we had to translate the movie "Up" which literally translated is Arriba, but in actuality got changed to Una Adventura de Altura for Spanish markets, which is the title she put down. We won on this technicality). By far the best graduation activity I have seen yet, it's gonna be a hard one to top.

So the week has ended on an up note. Tomorrow I'll catch the Xela-ju chicken bus (all on my own!) and make the hour trek out just past the town of Colomba to the three acres that constitutes La Escuela de la Montana, nestled into the mountain among coffee plants. This time I'll be one of those folks being let off on the side of the road, apparently in the middle of nowhere, to make the short walk up the drive to school. I'm excited. I hear there are all sorts of farm animals that are kept on the property including cats and a new litter of kittens. Although, Bryan recommended washing your hands thoroughly after playing with them, or otherwise be prepared to spend a day puking.

In any event, I'll leave you with some choice photos I managed to get this week. While walking to La Dispensa (one of the local grocery stores) to get ingredients for dinner, we had a somewhat unusual rain for late afternoon Xela; nice and light with the sun shining in full. I was walking with two other students, an Aussie and Tennessean, who were bemoaning rain in general and rain in cities in particular. I responded with my two cents, "I grew up in a place with lots of rain, so I've always liked it, and the smell. Rain makes everything smell clean and this, for me, is perfect rain. Light, gentle, and with the sun shining low like that you might be just lucky enough..." at this point we had crossed into Parque Central where everyone was bustling about enjoying a Friday late afternoon in the park. The trees and flowers looked positively golden in the wet and the sun. I turned around so the sun was behind us and looked up to the spot in the sky where I'd expect to see what I was looking for, and physics and nature did not disappoint. "...To get a rainbow. Or, apparently, a double rainbow."

Enjoy the Genesis reference here. I have a better close-up of the rainbow, but this gives you a view of the entire front of the cathedral. I personally think it's even more impressive from the roof of school; you can see all five? I think? of the domes in the back.

The other pic I got only happened because of my new family and my new walk to school. There are some pictures of my new street in the other post because it's quiet and empty in the mornings. This one is from the top of the street my school is on. The slight curve in the street lines the houses up just so to best show off their colors, which all happen to complement one another beautifully. This is probably the prettiest stretch of street to be found in Xela, and I wouldn't have realized that if I hadn't been walking from this new direction.

If you look close you can read the "Alto" on the stop sign. School is the bright yellow building on the right.

Mi Familia Nueva

For the explanation of why I had to change families, check out this post.
 
My new family is quite different from my first. The housekeeper/cook, Margarita, picked me up at school to bring me home for lunch. She is a tiny woman barely coming up to my armpit and reminds me of my grandmother on my Dad's side. Hardy, kind, smiles easily, and bustles around the kitchen producing delicious meals as if by magic. She wears the more traditional dress of a colorful skirt, huipil, and apron. Once we got to the house, which is several blocks further away from the school than my first home and on a quiet street that has a bakery (Peter Pan - pan is Spanish for bread), I met Margarita's assistant, a young girl of 15 named Cesia who has been working for this family for 3 or 4 years. She started out working in elementary school after classes and during school breaks, and now that she's in secondary school she works full time and attends classes on Sundays. She comes from a family of 13 siblings and lives here in the house along with Margarita. From what I understand Margarita has no children of her own and has been working and living with this family for some time. There's also Jullian, a young man who looks about the same age as Cesia. He is also an employee of the family but I'm not sure what he does.

My new street, Diagonal 1, looking in the direction of 6ta calle (6th street - my old street although several blocks down) on the walk to school. Building facades are very colorful pretty much all over the city, although some areas are less so. I never cease to be amazed at the spaces that are contained behind the doors. Cafe Red is a great example. It's a cafe with a drab, industrial looking facade on the street - indeed, it's easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for - but step inside and you find yourself in a beautiful courtyard ringed with a covered patio for tables and an asian architecture-inspired tea-house looking building in the middle that houses a dining room, the kitchen, and a funky bathroom with a claw-foot tub

Looking back up my street in the opposite direction, towards my new house - the front door is right where those cars are, on the right-hand side of the street. If you look closely at the blue building on the left you can see the Peter Pan bakery - it's open in the afternoons. I wish I could give you an idea of how narrow the sidewalks are - maybe 2.5 feet across? It's not enough for two people to walk next to each other, and someone has to turn flat to let another person pass.

Sitting down to lunch I first met Ana-Lucia, Margoli (I think), and Jeni (pronounced hen-y). I hadn't been told anything about the family, really, so I assumed that they were sisters all close in age (18-20ish) especially because Ana-Lucia and Jeni were going back and forth like siblings. When I asked, however, Ana-Lucia and Jeni laughed and said no, Jeni was just good friends with Ana-Lucia. I puzzled over this for a bit because Jeni seemed to have her own room in the house. I decided that maybe there was some reason she had moved in with Ana-Lucia's family, like for school. Shortly after we were joined by yet another young woman, Mady (short for Madelina) who finally explained to me that, no, none of the girls in the house were related, they were all students renting rooms or apartments. Soon after Mady arrived she was followed by Tanya, Mali, and Milton, yet more university students who are staying here. Apparently the house (which is huge and includes three apartments outside the main house but within the same roofed compound) is more like a boarding house. The couple that owns it have three sons, all grown and either living or studying in Guatemala City.

While there are several advantages to such a living arrangement - ample hot water, internet, and very flexible meal times - I miss the more cohesive feel of a single family unit. I definitely had a couple days of culture shock after being uprooted and, while everyone here is very nice, the students are young and talk very fast and tend to ignore me during conversations unless they want to try out some English. I don't mind so much as I like teaching and it's kind of fun to hear them stumble over English pronunciation the way I do with Spanish, however technically they're not supposed to speak any English with me. I learned from my first family that they have to sign a contract with the school about that, although it's likely the students aren't aware of this. They're just all so young. Secondary school ends at 16 here and then folks start on what's termed their Bachelor's, which takes 2-3 years depending on the degree (generally technical degrees or trade professions - like a secretary, legal assistant, nurse, mechanic). Professions requiring more technical instruction or academic instruction, like medicine, engineering, psychology, lawyer, go on after their Bachelor's to University. Mady and I had an entire conversation about the differences between the US degree system and the Guatemalan system, and she had a hard time understanding that for us, University and a Bachelor's degree are practically synonymous terms - they're not separate entities.

So, all of the students attend University. Jeni is the youngest at 19, she just started her first year of med school, and Mady and Milton are the oldest, both 23. Mady is studying civic engineering and Milton is studying orthodontics.

In Guatemala there are very large disparities between socioeconomic and "racial" classes - those Guatemalans of primarily indigenous Mayan ethnicity comprise the poorest socioeconomic class, tend to live in the more rural (read: impoverished) areas, and face a lot of racial discrimination. Their recent (past 500 years) history is not unlike that of Native Americans in the US. During the 36-year armed conflict/civil war, in the 1980's, nearly 200,000 Guatemalans, 80% of whom were Mayan, were killed in one of the worst government-led genocides seen in the northern hemisphere during that time period.

This background helps explain why, today, it is only very well-off families who can afford to send their children to University, have them live in a boarding house, and not have to work while in school. In that sense, the students here are very much like young 20-something students back in the states. They all have cell phones, listen to popular music from the US, dress in very similar fashions, and like to party and go out with friends. Cesia and Jullian present the other side of the story, having started labor-based work at a young age out of necessity, and don't have the same opportunities for education.

In the setting of this class system, what is very interesting about this living situation is that my host mom, Sandra, appears to be of indigenous Mayan background - she and Margarita could pass for mother and daughter. However she has clearly had more socioeconomic opportunities than the average Guatemalan and is very well-educated and very well-off financially. Sandra is a biochemist and works in a local lab along with her husband, Jorge. They may actually own the lab, I'm not entirely sure. Jorge keeps track of data and back-office documentation, Sandra "is the one that draws the blood samples and looks through the microscope" as Jorge tells me. Jorge is retired, he had another profession in the past but I'm not sure what it was. He's an interesting character as well, very outgoing, talkative, and tall, which is unusual around here. Sandra is clearly the head of the household, which is another rather interesting dynamic here because the culture is so masculine-dominant. I actually didn't get to meet her until lunch yesterday because she works long hours and generally doesn't come home for lunch like Jorge, and I kept having evening events and not being home for dinner. When she's in the house, the feeling is almost like you're in the presence of the ruling monarch, and she's holding court. Everyone just gets a tad more formal and straightens up.

Everyone in the house gets very excited whenever I mention that I live in Boston (and that's all the time because it's the 2nd or 3rd question when folks first meet me). Apparently Sandra has spent time in Boston, and has a second house in Roslindale, MA, although I'm very fuzzy on the details.

Mady has been really quite awesome, she and I clicked right away and our meal times match up pretty well so we chat over breakfast and lunch. She's patient with me when I take a while to get my words and thoughts out, and doesn't mind speaking slow or repeating something. She helped me get the password for the internet and as soon as I brought out my computer, she hopped online and added me as a facebook friend. We were going to try and go to El Cuartito today because she's never been, but our schedules didn't seem to connect. Although I requested at school to be placed with a new family when I return from the Mountain School after next week, I hope Mady and I can stay in touch and hang out some more at some point.

Las ollas pequenas!

I found them! The little spice pots! The first Sunday of every month (that would be today) is the local market day in Parque Central. Maggie texted me at noon to say she thought she'd found my pots, and ten minutes later I was happily pawing through a small pile of them. Here's what I was looking for:

They are wee! I couldn't resist the pitchers either.

For size comparison, here's a couple in my hand

I also found some other "medium sized" or, maybe "normal small sized" bowls and grabbed a few of them too - photo below.

While I was taking photos of my little pots I also paused to take some photos of my room. And then when I uploaded them to my computer I found some other pics I had taken of the "mountain" that I look at out my bedroom window. So enjoy a few more pictures of my current life, albeit a bit tardy in being posted.

Another close-up for some detail. Aren't they just the cutest things?

Other fun news from today, I got to try some Pollo Campero. This is apparently a weekend of fast food for me. Pollo Campero is a fried chicken fast food joint originating in Guatemala (although I think you can find a few of them stateside in Texas and/or California). Think KFC, but better. My host sister is supervising a play date between her son and one of his friends from school and stopped at Pollo Campero as a treat for lunch, so it's also what I got for lunch. I would say that the chicken is better than KFC (although, that's not too hard) although the fries and coleslaw are kind of sub-par. The ketchup is rather interesting, it's sort of like a mix between US ketchup and bbq sauce. It's rather tasty.

I also got brave with my food excursions at El Cuartito today. Normally I stick to the chocolate con leche (hot chocolate with milk) which is delicious. But today is a bit on the warmer side, so I opted to finally try one of their smoothies - mango, to be exact. Also delicious. Next on my list: Iced Chai Frappe. Seriously, I heart this place.

Ok, enjoy some more photos...

The other bowls I found. They're not that big, but bigger than the little spice pots

Mi escritorio! (my desk) - with my market finds and water supply

Mi cama (my bed). My host mom gave me fresh sheets this week. They're awesome :)

The other corner of my room with my dresser that I don't use. You can see my pack on top that I live out of. And my dirty clothes pile.

This is the view from outside my bedroom door. I'm on the second level of the house and look out out over the rooftops to a mountain.  Maybe it's just a hill, I can't tell. From school's roof I can almost see my room - it's obscured by another building structure, but it's not far.

That same mountain with the clouds coming in over the top of it. This was one morning that I just thought it looked really pretty.

Closer zoom on the mountain in clouds

This is from our hike in Concepcion. We were halfway up a steep hill on our way to a Myan ritual site. We got a really nice view of some of the farmland and the towns below us (Concepcion and San Marcus, I believe)

This shot is just to the right of the one above, you can see out across the valley to San Marcus (I think). Both towns are nestled in this valley ringed in mountains and volcanoes - but that's every town here in the highlands region

Further left, the hillside/mountainside opposite us. These would be the outskirts of Concepcion. After we visited the Myan ritual site we went to hang out at the midwifery clinic which was awesome.

En el pasado.... and other happenings this week

Este tardes, estoy en El Cuartito, el cafe que Caitlin me presento a mi primero fin de semana. Esta semana paso mi primero nivel de espanol en la escuela. Ahora voy a ir a el segundo nivel y empezar a aprender el tiempo pasado (pretirete). Estoy muy emocionada. Caitlin graduarse ayer, aunque ella tiene una semana mas de la escuela de la montana, y en su presentacion de graduacion ella habla sobre aprender el tiempo pasado. "Antes aprender el tiempo pasado, necesito decir 'Voy a lavanderia, pero en el pasado' o 'Vivo en mucho estados, pero en el pasado'" Este acompanado de ella move su mano rapidamente en un movimiento que muestra "en el pasado" ... pero, en el pasado (anoche). Voy a extranar a Caitlin, ella esta mi primero amiga aqui. Lo digo ella puede visitar a Dylan y mi en cualquier momento.

Porque yo no se el tiempo pasado todavia, esta historia es en el tiempo presente, pero sucede esta manana. Maggie (otra amiga de escuela) y yo vamos al mercado minerva para buscar las ollas pequena para los especias, como ellos en El Cuartito. No encontramos, pero tenemos una buen manana. El mercado minerva es como un laberinto de tiendas y colores (stalls, really). Hay todos una persona quiere: ropas, especias, frutas, vegetales, zapatos, velas, caramelos, instrumentos, los alimentos cocinados. Una mujer quiere vender nos remolachas y ella esta persistente. Ella sabe nosotros queremos remolachas, aunque decimos "no, gracias" varios veces. Es una adventura.

Antes ir al mercado, vamos a Wendy's. Si, Wendy's. Anoche, despues graduacion y cena, nosotros vamos a el bar cerca de la escuela, que es propiedad para una mujer quien trabaja a la escuela. Ella hace mojitos - muy bueno mojitos, y muy fuerte. Yo bebo dos, y Maggie bebe tres. Entonces, nosotros necesitamos un remedio para la resaca la proxima manana, y Wendy's es nuestro remedio.

This afternoon, I am in El Cuartito, the cafe that Caitlin introduced me to my first weekend. This week I pass my first level of spanish in school. Now I am going to start the second level and begin learning the past tense (preterite). I am very excited. Caitlin graduated yesterday, although she has one more week at the mountain school, and in her graduation presentation she talked about learning the past tense. "Before learning the past tense I had to say 'I am going to the laundromat, but in the past' or 'I live in many states, but in the past'" This was accompanied by her moving her hand rapidly in a movement to indicate "in the past"...but, in the past (last night). I am going to miss Caitlin, she is my first friend here. I told her she can visit Dyl and I anytime.

Because I don't know past tense yet, this story is in the present tense, but happens (it happened) this morning. Maggie (another friend from school) and I go to the Minerva Market to look for the little spice pots like they have at El Cuartito. We don't find them, but have a good morning. The Minerva market is like a maze with shops and colors (stalls, really). There is everything a person wants: clothes, spices, fruit, vegetables, shoes, candles, candy, tools, cooked food. One woman wants to sell us beets and is very persistent. She knows we want beets although we say "no, thank you" several times. It's an adventure.


Before going to the market, we go to Wendy's. Yes, Wendy's. Last night, after graduation and dinner, we go to a bar close to school which is owned by a woman who works at school. She makes mojitos - very good mojitos, and very strong. I drink two, Maggie drinks three. So, we need a remedy for a hangover the next morning, and Wendy's is our remedy.

My Spanish is coming along quite well. Wendy's in Guatemala are pretty much exactly like Wendy's in the states. The items are named in English even. For a half hour I munched on french fries dipped in a frosty and indulged in a cheeseburger, with Wendy's regulation pickles. It was a nice little escape. My hangover was not nearly as rough as Maggie's, although I'm still in need of rehydration.

Other cool news from this week, on Thursday I hopped over to Entremundos, an organization that helps connect volunteers with organizations to volunteer with. I have a meeting set up on Monday with Primeros Pasos "First Steps" to discuss volunteer opportunities with them. They are a health clinic on the outskirts of the city that do a lot of health education with women and children populations. They prefer folks with intermediate Spanish skills, so we'll see if I'm up to snuff, but hopefully it will be a great opportunity to practice my speaking, help support a local clinic, and pick up some clinical vocab in the process.