4 days til the arrival of my first vision team...

Finally my OWN vision team is coming! Ever since shadowing the one a few weeks ago, I have been waiting for this day. I am honestly very excited. Which is weird because its my JOB. But I feel like its almost like I am going on vacation WITH my vision team, and living through their eyes as their first time in Guatemala! (Yet its so much cooler, cause I am the know it all and get to tell THEM everything about Guatemala.)

The group is 7 high schoolers and 1 adult from Long Island, NY. They have all traveled Europe extensively but never a third world country so I am *excited* (dont know if thats the right word) to view their reactions to life in Guatemala. Hopefully the trip will be very eye-opening for them. I am just excited that I was in charge of the whole thing, and that I get to make sure their first experience here is a success.

The last 2 weeks have been crazy busy in the planning--I literally plan every minute of every day they are here. What food they will eat here, which rooms they´re gonna stay in, which restaurants and tours they will go on, which taxis we will take, which house they´re gonna build, which activities in schools and on site they are gonna do...its a lot. Probably the biggest checklist I have ever had. BUT i love checklists, so its all good.

All in all, I am very very excited for my group to come :) I fully intend on creating a lasting memory for them of Guatemala, and hopefully when they leave some of my own love for the country will have rubbed off on them :) They are highschoolers, after all, so very impressionable! Especially since I am almost their age. Well not really I suppose I am about 5 years older than them, but I still FEEL like I am their age. Hahaaha.

My new favorite recipe :)

2 Bean Salad
Ingredients:
2 can black beans
1 can garbanzo beans
2 red peppers
1/4 to 1/2 cup onion
1/4 to 1/2 cup parsley
2-3 limes, squeezed
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
*Variation: Brianna likes to add 1 can of corn and also some cilantro 

-prep work: Drain and rinse black beans and garbanzo beans.

1) Chop peppers into small pieces.
2) Finely dice onion
3) Chop parsley (1/4 to 1/2 cup)

Set aside
Mix together garbanzo beans, black beans, pepper, onion and parsley. Stir well.

In a small bowl, whisk together lime juice, vinegar, salt. Pour onto bean mix. Add paprika, coriander and pepper. Stir well.

Mmmmmmm….enjoy!

Interesting events of the day:

Yesterday was not your typical Wednesday.
1) Upon trying to open my bank account down here, (which work helps set up and deposits my stipend), I was refused and sent away with the instruction that I need a personal letter from the Embassy stating my migration situation in Guatemala. Thaaaaat´s just wonderful. (I have a tourist visa, why on earth would the Embassy give me a letter authorizing me to work?) I spent a long frustrating time bickering with the bank lady trying to explain to her that I am NOT the first Common Hope employee to have to do this and that MANY people have done it before me...but she kept on insisting it was a new policy. Sooo Common Hope is apparently going to call them today and there´s ONE lady in the whole banco that will be willing to set me up an account. Or something. Ridiculous.

Interesting event #2: While dancing salsa last night at our favorite salsa place (La Esquina) I somehow ended up in a dance-off with a Guatemalan. On stage. With the band. Whose lead singer pulled me over. DON´T ask me how this happened! He saw me dancing, (with a Guate city instructor, who was GOOD, and then for some reason was under the false impression that I MYSELF was good, (false) Aaaand then Mr.Lead Singer wanted me onstage with a bunch of Guatemalan girls in a line...aaaaand then there was a dance off..but not really a salsa one...reggaeton....aaaand then at the end it was just me and one other Guatemalan girl left, aaand I´m not really sure if this lead singer guy thought I was Guatemalan, or WHAT, but it was ridiculous. There was a black guy in the band like layin it down for us on the mic and the music was blaring reggaeton so it was a great time!
However, after I got offstage, my friends come over and were like um WHAT?! was THAT?! And I was like...UMMM...i really honestly have no idea...I have no idea how I ended up there!
But then afterwards I was the hit of the entire place, which was fun, except for the fact that the creepy old men only got creepier after that. Baha. They are usually harmless, they just like to stare and ogle and once in a while get the courage to ask you to dance.

(Sidenote: I would just like to clearly inform everybody that salsa dancing does not involve alcohol. It in fact prohibits alcohol! Thank you.)

#3: Unfortunately. While I was up on stage pretending to be Guatemalan. Some nice person decided to rifle through my purse on the side of the dancing area and steal my phone. I was a little more than upset when I called it, looking for it, and a man answered, and then after I freaked out, he refused to answer again. I was MAD. Mad is an understatement actually. Luckily, I had the thought earlier in the night to take out my wallet with my check card and license and leave them at home, only taking a little cash with me for the taxi, so I didn´t lose anything except the phone. ALSO luckily, I was just about out of minutes, so I only lost about $20 (the price of the phone) instead of losing the phone PLUS the 300 minutes that could have been on it! So there is a bright side. The downside is that I JUST memorized my stupid phone number, had JUST given it out to friends, and a DAMN THEIF was rifling through my purse in plain eyesight of everyone! ARGHHH. Needless to say, yesterday was a very frustrating and interesting day. Lessons learned though, definitely.

Construction Career

So, if any of you don´t know, I have found my future calling.

Definitely going to be a construction worker.

I can build houses with the best of them.

Thank you very much.

Hahaha just kidding. But it was definitely a really cool experience working with the Vision Team to build the house. (We had a lot of younger people and elderly people, so us strapping young women and men had to help out)

Also, the home blessing was probably one of the cooler things I have ever been a part of...seeing the family who had worked hard hours doing community service, to earn their house that we built for them, was really cool. They were overjoyed and really moved emotionally. They were used to living in a small cornstalk shack with 5 children sleeping in one room, and now they had a two bedroom house. When we did the house blessing, we all began to say the Our Father at the same time, but each in our respective languages, and it was very emotional. I think every Vision Team member had tears in their eyes, and the mother of the house was actually crying quite a bit. To hear multiple voices in different languages saying the same prayer was very very cool. I am so glad I will get to be a part of many of these home buildings and blessing ceremonies! (Also, we had very good cake) :)

Lowlights of last week

1) Last night (Thursday) there was an earthquake tremor so strong that it woke me up in the middle of the night at 3am, scared as crap. Out of the 4 tremors that I have felt in Guatemala in my life, it was definitely the strongest. The house literally shook. Eeeeek no more volcanoes erupting pleaseee!

2) Lowlight # 2: Every morning and night I go on sowbug hunts. Massacres is more like it, actually. They invade my house, around the windows and doors, finding their ways in. I have discovered this is because my house is literally like soaked through, in places. You can see moisture, everywhere. And those little creepers looove moisture. So I CANNOT wait for dry season, and in the meantime, I need to look for sowbug repellant ideas.

3) Another definite lowlight: I found 2 massive slugs in my house this week. Like, massive. One about 4 inches long. I will spare you all from showing a picture, though I DID take one, to document the horror. The slugs here are creepy as can be—they have black spots, kind of like Northern Pikes. And they are huge. And slimy. Now, after dealing with 3 in my house, I am more used to them. But upon finding the first one, I had to pick up the phone right away and didn’t stop freaking out for about…10 minutes. One of them, I had the guts to kill—I wrapped it in toilet paper for about 3 minutes, and then when I was SURE no slug juice was gonna leak out, I stepped on it to squish it. The 4-inch-long one however? Definitely did not have the guts to kill it. Instead, I used the prongs of my fork to transport it, and then carried it over to my window and flung it out as far as I could.
Once again—I cannot WAIT for the dry season.

Highlights of Last Week

1) I have discovered a lime tree on my terrace. This is great news, because I love lime and put it on everything. (Today I for lunch I ate a cucumber with lime and salt). This discovery is not as exciting as discovering a mango tree on my terrace, for example, but it was still exciting enough to be the highlight of my Thursday, and to warrant a phone call home to Mom 

2) I ate a mango that was as big as my face this week. It lasted me 2 breakfasts and 1 snack. I bought them at the market: 2 mangos for Q.5. (FYI, that is about .75 American cents) I am going to get SOOO spoiled on fresh cheap produce that returning to the states and buying 3 day old fruit at Cub is going to suck!

3) The first Vision Team that I worked with came and left! It was a very good experience, and now I have discovered that I am going to absolutely love my job. Despite the fact that I was officially only shadowing the real coordinator for this team, I ended up doing quite a bit of it by myself, when the coordinator got sick. (This was quite a learning experience, as I MYSELF hadn’t been to half the places I took the team) They’d ask me all sorts of questions, and I just had to either make something up, or turn on the apologetic charm and explain I was just as new to it as they were. (Turns out I am pretty good at feeding bull and guessing the right answers to some of these things :P)

4) Highlight #4: Today we have the day off!! For all the work we did shoveling mud the week of the hurricane, now Common Hope is rewarding us and giving us time to rest. And yesterday was employee appreciation day at work--so in the morning, all of the Common Hope staff was gathered together for 8am calisthenics and aerobics, led by our physical therapist and pregnant women’s aerobics instructor, which was followed by spa activities and our own version of the World Cup. It’s really fun to see how into soccer people are down here. The World Cup is on in our cafeteria all day long, and some of the guys here are actually like REALLY GOOD at playing soccer. (Which I discovered during our employee “world cup”).
5) Highlight #5: Today is my first “weekend” day in my house—I finally had time to unpack everything! Last weekend, I was moved in, but had to get up at 7:30 both Saturday and Sunday to take the Vision Team to activities in Antigua that took all day. So today is my first entire DAY in my house. (Usually during the week I get home when it’s almost dark, and am always too tired to do anything) But today, I finally unpacked and cleaned!

6) I have also been hit lately by the reality that I have joined the big people world—I have NO homework. This has long been my dream—to just go to work, and have no homework to have to slave over when coming home! I still kind of feel like its summer, though, and the homework will start up again when I return from this extended Guatemalan vacation—but I am sure reality will set it shortly.

7) I am learning a lot about myself on this adventure—for example, I discovered that I absolutely love living on my own, and still do not feel lonely or homesick. (I always thought of myself as a pretty independent person, and now living in a house by myself and absolutely loving it has only reinforced that thought) I love doing things my own way, on my own schedule. I like making my own meals, and not having to clean up after anybody but myself. I even like the absence of chatter—(well, besides the Spanish I hear streaming in through the walls of my adjoining housemates) and find that such an absence makes for a lot of good time for self reflection. And if I ever get lonely? I can just walk down to Santa Ana’s town square, where there is usually a variety of soccer games/town activities going on. (Today, for example, they had a massive game of Bingo going in the park. How cute right :) I absolutely love Santa Ana.

Weekly Rundown

So much has happened in this last few days that I don´t even know where to begin!

Wednesday Night: Was visited by Alex, Champion, and Christian from Xela, who took 2 girls from work and I out dancing! FINALLY I went out. Danced salsa. It was a wonderful night, hands down the best I´ve had so far in Antigua. Live band who played song after song of Salsa and Cha Cha Cha, and my best friends from Xela. I was totally in my element.
(Shut it Angelo)

Thursday: Went on a social work visit at work. This was by far one of the most interesting experiences I have had at work so far. I went with a social worker, Paola, to a poor community near Antigua, where I proceeded to listen in on 5 social work visits. The whole time I kept thinking, in the U.S., this would totally never be legal! So many confidentiality issues--the first woman began telling Paola how her husband is alcoholic and sometimes doesn´t come home and sometimes hurts her and how she thinks there is another woman...she goes on and on, all the while holding all emotions inside (as many Guatemalans do) while I´m just sitting there trying to pretend I don´t understand Spanish. (Social work visits are something every member of the Vision Team goes on while they´re here, so a lot of them don´t speak Spanish) So I was just nonchalantly pretending to be one of those people, trying my hardest not to cry. But seeing the woman holding back the tears and keeping it all in, while her life is in shambles, was pretty hard. I ALmost teared up, but thankfully being professional won the battle over my emotions. The next 4 visits were a lot easier, but still eye-opening to see the houses and conditions in which people lived. The good part about doing all this extensive orientation at work is that I am getting a good idea of what different occupations are like! During the visits to the homes, I was thinking to myself that I would be a pretty good social worker. But then when I was working in the pre.school, I was thinking to myself that I´d make a pretty darn good teacher. Haha maybe I should not be so...egotistic? :)

Friday: The first vision team arrived! I went to the airport with their coordinator to pick them up....and have been with them ever since. We were with them after work until 6 yesterday, and then got up at 7:30 this morning to meet them. Somehow I still managed to do a little dancing at La Sin Ventura with Laura and Lexi from work :) We had a lot of fun, despite the fact that there was no salsa. Reggaeton is my 2nd favorite, and we found a place without millions of annoying Gringos (white skinned people) so it was a successful night, pretending to be Latinos.

Saturday: Today, after getting up at the crack of dawn, we went on a few tours with the Vision Team around Antigua, and then I proceeded to take them to lunch and help them shop and barter in Antigua for the afternoon, when Lys the real coordinator, had to go home. Part of me felt pretty cool, taking a group around Antigua, but part of me felt like I was babysitting. It was really weird to be attacked by all the children and people in the streets, trying to sell stuff, cause when I am alone, they rarely bother me anymore, but now that I was in a group of 12 tourist-y looking white people? They flocked. It was weird cause it was so different than I am used to! I am veryyyy tired from babysitting adults all day, (telling them what they can and cannot do, eat, buy, walk, etc.) and about to go to bed at like 8. Tomorrow we will be at it again, with a historical tour of Antigua, lunch, and Mass. Should be another fun but exhausting day.
Nevertheless, I absolutely love working with the group and cannot wait until my own comes!!

Hasta luego, and love to all in the states!

Common Hope Pre-School

This week has been busy with orientation--spending time in each department to learn about what they do, and then afterward, having some ´practicum´time as they call it, where I actually work and observe in the area.
So yesterday, after my education orientation, much to my delight I was placed in the pre-school for the morning. After this experience, I just have to put a couple things out there.
One, I am in love. (I have never seen a Guatemalan child in my LIFE who is not adorable--they have these big round brown eyes that seem way too big for their faces, and pudgy cheeks, and they are just hands down adorable.) (One girl at the end even had her arms around my neck, kissing my cheeks, saying ¨Adios mama! Adios mamasita!¨ Sooooo cute).
Two, I can honestly say that as a whole, they behave differently than children in the states. Honestly. They are less spoiled, they are less whiny, and in general, happier! They play together outside, boys and girls, running around holding hands, and pushing each other on swings, taking turns....and these are THREE year olds. Not once did I hear yells or screams or ´mine´or anything. Not even exaggerating here people. Its amazing.
Anyways, after spending the morning with them, I was one, in love, and two, astounded. Three, ready to make sure that my children someday will NOT be spoiled rotten brats who can´t share and take turns and be polite and patient!

Mi Casita!

Finalmente tengo casita! I moved in last night....and it is SO much nicer than I expected. When I went to see the place, it was dirty from the previous renters, but now the landlords cleaned everything thoroughly and even repainted the whole inside a cute bright coral. They provided me with a bed, a Coleman like stove, a small refrigerator, a few dishes, a table and 2 plastic chairs, 1 garbage can, and a broom! What more could one want, right?
(Well ok so actually I have a long list....the first item being a mirror) But I will just acquire things poco a poco, every month. Anyways, the good news about the house is that the waters hot, the toilet flushes nicely, and there is a door that separates my beautiful roof terrace from the house, so little animals will NOT be crawling down my stairs to visit my garbage! That is the best news.
Work is busy busy busy, we have a Vision Team coming in on Friday, so I will be shadowing everything they do. Potentially a lot of fun! Until then, its orientation every day at work, spending time in each department of the foundation and learning about what they do. The week is already flying by!

Goodbye wireless, hello apartment!

So here I am, using up my last bit of wireless internet. Oh, how it has spoiled me! (Maybe now at least I'll feel more like I'm living in a third-world country)
Soo, anyways, I am off to move in to the new house in about....oh 20 minutes! Exciting :)) I will be of course updating this later in the week, with the latest adventures of a house with no door to the roof (well, that's just my biggest fear at this point) but I'm sure I will survive just fine. I mean, I love animals. And critters. I am pretty much like the biggest critter-lover you will ever meet.

Ha. Anyways, I'm excited to move! The blog posts will be less frequent and undoubtedly more concentrated, cause I will be forced to type them all on Microsoft Word at home and then upload like 6 at a time, but bear with me. I still have the hope to update everyone fairly often, with the latest goings-on of Guatemala.

Thats all for now, folks, the weather's great, my stuff is packed, and I'm ready to go! Wish me luck in this new place. I might need it :)

Sunday Night

Ventured into Antigua today...in town, you'd hardly know there was a disaster just 6 days ago. We've had almost 7 days in a row of dryer, sunny weather, and it's helped with the cleanup immensely. And dispite the week from hell that Guatemalans have had, Antigua was surprisingly "alegre" (as the guard put it) (happy) today. Sundays are typically "ice-cream days" in Guatemala, so the park gets crowded with families walking leisurely through, ice cream cone in hand. Today, there was even a festive band, and the whole town seemed to be smiling with the sun.

It was quite the fun afternoon. I wandered around Antigua, sweating in the sun, trying to orient myself, and was successful in finding a nicer grocery store. Bought a few bags of groceries, to prepare myself for MOVING TOMORROW! I finally was able to find an apartment, (small house actually) for $100 bucks a month plus electricity, ($135 a month) so I am vveerryyy excited to have my own space. Its in Santa Anna, which is a little town halfway between work and Antigua. Perfect walking distance to both. It has one bedroom, a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and it even has a terrace/roof, where I can sun myself. Does that not sound like the perfect place for me? :) We'll see tomorrow, I guess, cause the landlord was gonna clean it and stock it with furniture, so hopefully it'll turn out ok, with enough furniture to satisfy my remaining American habits.

To the right is the main street between work and Santa Anna. Its about a 20 minutes walk from "home" to work everyday, which I'll much prefer to having to take taxis.

Another occurence of the day was running into about 19 churches in Antigua. There are SO. MANY. Old. Churches. Tons. Like, one every couple corners. And they are all old ruins, which makes it really cool. So I tried to document a couple that stood out to me, but it was just impossible to take pictures of them all. It is definitely the old church/historic convent town!

Last picture here is of part of the Artisan's market. (One of my Guatemalan weaknesses) I haven't caved yet, though, (probably because I've been too preoccupied with things like hurricanes and earthquakes,) although I like to think it's because I have self-control. In any case, I have yet to stop and indulge in the ridiculously under-priced authentic Guatemalan goods. But just wait. In a couple months, when I have this whole living-on-my-own thing down pat, I will be possibly buying out the purse section of the artisans. So that's all for now--the highlights of the weekend: finding an apartment, having beautiful sunny weather all weekend, skyping with friends and family, and relaxing and reading trashy novels all weekend. I would consider it a success. Still keep your prayers with the Guatemalans who have lost family members and homes in the floods. Things are better, certainly, but losing that much is definitely not the easiest thing in the world.

Hurricane Agatha Update

Today's Thursday...5 days in. We're still sending out package upon package of aid and supplies to the nearby villages, but we've stopped sending digging teams. The staff had work piling up, (seeing as how our full time jobs are NOT digging mud,) and so most work has had to resume to normal. The warehouse stocking continues, though, and spare time I have (which is a lot, considering orientation is not a possibility this week,) is spent in the warehouse, sorting through clothes, packaging supplies, etc. It's not as rewarding as digging mud, weirdly, but at least I know it's helping hungry families. The other positive is that we've had 4 days in a row now with not a drop of rain. It's like God is helping after the storm...the dryness actually makes it somewhat possible for families to recover and begin to get their lives back together. The situation does improve, however slightly, every day. My biggest fear for the country is that this is the first week of hurricane season. A hurricane season that they've deemed to be worse than usual, also due to the oil spill, which has some sort of chemical affect on the water, or something, making it warmer? Which makes hurricanes form easier. I don't really know the chemistry of it all, but what I do know is that this could be a tough year for Guatemalans.

Food for Thought

A couple things I have found myself pondering lately:

1) There was just another earthquake tremor, just as strong as the last one. Please no more volcanic eruptions....

2) If I had been born to a Guatemalan family instead of an American one, would I have the education and privilges that I do?
Some people are so lucky....

3) Why is it necessary to plan one's future? I always think I have the perfect life plan...what I'm gonna do, who I'm gonna marry, how perfect my children will be...etc...but why? Is that necessary? Whats wrong with living one day at a time?

4) As I sit here, in the beautiful evening "sunset" (more of a pink sky really), looking up into the mountains with the fog surrounding them, I can't help but think of the war. All the people who live in mountain villages were some of the first to be massacred in the civil war-turned-genocide (of which the U.S. had a large part in initiating) of the 20th century. This country is still very affected--corruption and segregation plague society still today. It's easy to think about the war as the "past", since that's what it is...and also, since the Guatemalans don't talk about it. (They always have a smile on the outside, no matter what they are feeling on the inside.) However, the war still very much affects Guatemala today.

5) And, last but not least: My time here so far in Guatemala--nearing 2 weeks--is already leaps and bounds easier than my time being away while studying abroad. Perhaps its cause now I've already left home for 4 months, so I know what to expect...or perhaps its cause I have a job here, and a purpose, and I absolutely look forward to every minute of my group planning...or perhaps its cause I've matured in the past year and a half and now am even more independent than I was junior year. It also could be that I am not struggling with language and communication issues like I was the first time here. In any case, I continue to surprise myself at how much I DON't miss the states. I miss certain people, of course, but not even to the point of homesickness yet. Maybe I'm lucky....... Or maybe I was really meant to be exactly where I am right now.

Disaster Relief: Day 3

Once again, we made CNN World's headline--http://us.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/06/01/central.america.storm.deaths/index.htmlcentral.america.storm.deaths/index.html Though the official death toll is going up, the situation here is slightly improving. We've had 2 days in a row now with dry, sunny weather, which has immensly helped with the cleanup. Shown right is what a typical day looks like for us. Shovel upon shovel of mud. Yesterday all day was spent shoveling mud, but today I got to hang out with the construction team doing a variety of things, mainly tree cleanup (I officially hate wheelbarrows built for short people) and shoveling and hauling dirt in wheelbarrows. (I actually enjoyed this greatly, cause the construction guys are great. We made up opposite-sex names for each other--Esteban and Maynor became Estefania and Maynorcita, and Brianna became Brianno. Sooo I got to work with two little girls all day; it was great)

To the left is the main entrance to Common Hope--after we cleared all the mud away. You can see how high it was. Although there was a team of, oh, say...20 of us, this was still possibly the most tedious and physically demanding task I have done in my life. It's been really good for me to work for 2 days straight in manual labor. I discovered muscles I never knew I had, (am I getting old already, or is it normal to have a sore back?!) Needless to say, I sleep like a baby at night, and wake up in mild pain. (Sunburn combined with sore muscles)--definitely a good sore however. I can't help but feel really good about what we're doing--I've never been directly involved with any sort of disaster relief and it really makes me feel good to know I'm helping.

Shown to the right is one of the sadder pictures--this is a house in San Miguel, a village 2km away. Normally their window does not open to the view of heaps of garbage. You can see how high the water was. So sad. I just keep thinking how lucky I am to have a sturdy wonderful house. How lucky I am to never have to worry about losing all of my possessions--or family. There are still over 100 people unaccounted for in Guatemala. There are still bodies in the streets among the huge rocks, sheet metal, glass, and other miscellaneous debris.

Not to be a downer, but it's just reality. Its what people here are dealing with. However, to end on a slightly more positive note, it really is getting better each day. Everyone at Common Hope has been putting in long strenuous days and we've been donating a ton of supplies to the villages. Yesterday, Shari, one of the directors, came home with a Q.50,000 grocery bill--which equates to about 6,000 American dollars. Thanks to

Common Hope donors, I guess, this is possible.

-- Shown here is our assembly line at Common Hope to unload bags and bags of water in little plastic bags. I have no idea how many little bags of water there were, but that truck was definitely about half full when it arrived. (I wasn't around for the whole assembly process, cause I was out shoveling mud, but I came to join the fun for a bit cause everyone was talking and laughing and trying to get the fastest possible assembly line going.) So we are making progress, and we are making a difference--and sometimes, when the sun's out, we even find ways to have a little fun while doing so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm4LSgFv2VY