Update

Finally catching up on blogging.
Nothing like being sick at home, stuck in bed, to make you catch up on blogging! Haha. I wish I was kidding, but unfortunately I am not. But on the bright side, being sick at home finally gives me some time to breath. (Along with time to run to the toilet every half an hour!) Thank you, Guatemala. Not sure what it was that made me sick this time, I think I just got lazy and didn’t wash my cilantro in purified water. (I mean, it just gets picked from a plant, right? How could it be THAT dirty?) (My thought process while quickly rinsing my cilantro)
DANG. Note to self (and readers): WASH YOUR HERBS.

(Well, at least I learned something, right.) Luckily, my stomach IS accustomed enough that I wasn’t actually vomiting with food poisioning, just cleansing out my system pretty well through uh, other forms. Also the cilantro deposited some sort of bug in my stomach that has made me bloated and bubbly and gas-y. Wonderful. Bugs in my stomach.

Haha but never fear, I am already doing better (day 2) and hopefully tomorrow (Friday) I’ll be able to go to work! I’m sure ready to get out of bed, that’s for sure. It has given me WAAY too much time to reflect on the fact that I only have 1 month left in Guatemala.
I mean, reflecting time is good, but too much of it is just sad. I don’t want to leave Guatemala! (What, I have already started the bittersweet sadness?)

I think seeing Jenna go on Monday really hit home, as she had to say good-bye to all of our favorite people and places in Xela. And she was only here for a couple months. How am I ever going to say good-bye to a people and country that I have lived with for the past YEAR? That I have established a life in? Right now, home for me is Antigua. Coming back from Xela, it was like, sigh of relief, I am home. I know my way around the whole town, little as it is, and I can walk blindfolded to my neighborhood to my house. Truth be told, Antigua is as much “home” right now as any other place. I have a home here, I pay rent on my apartment, electricity, buy groceries, have a Monday through Friday job, etc.
There have been some months that I was ready to go home, ready to adjust back to my life in MN, but now, with the end in sight, it seems like there’s just no win-win. The grass will always be greener on the other side of the hill. (Or fence, as people like to pretend the saying is, GIRLS)  I know that the second I arrive back to MN, I will be missing so many things about Guatemala. I guess that’s the price I pay for having two countries and cultures that I am so attached to.

There are so many things that I love about the Guatemalan culture. One, their enormous love for each other. Families are so united and caring in Guatemala. (I have never seen so much spectacle for Mother’s Day, EVER. Flowers everywhere. People don’t go to work. You wish a happy mothers day to anyone who appears to be over the age of 40, because its just assumed they have children. So people walk down the street, wishing strangers happy mothers day. You also have to call everyone in your family who is a mother, whether it be YOUR mother, or not. It is quite beautiful to see the care these people have). Also I quite enjoy the Guatemalan custom of greeting everybody you know when you walk into a room, and despedir-ing them before you leave. And when you are walking with a Guatemalan on the street, and they run into someone they know, you are expected to give said person a kiss on the cheek like you are best friends and so pleased to meet. It sounds ridiculous, but there’s this large sense of respect and politeness in their culture that I just love.
But I will stop ranting about Guatemalan manners for now, as I am sure it is much more interesting to me than to my readers. More later!