Rain, Rain Go Away! I need clean towels…

Rain, Rain Go Away! I need clean towels…

I had every intention of doing some laundry and burning some trash today after having cleaned my room in a very aggressive manner…but the weather has again chosen for me to stay inside, drink tea and fool around on my computer. What can you do?

More food triumphs…

-I am currently still recovering from a rather intense food coma that I entered into last night and enabled to continue this afternoon. My darling Claire came up for a visit and in honor of her travel we made a particularly delicious, Mediterranean meal.

The menu consisted of Pita bread, falafal, assorted raw vegetables, tatziki sauce, hummus, rice tabouleh salad and this experimental sauce that was spicy and quite wonderful; all made from scratch.
I had to take pictures to document the immense quantities of food that we made and ate. A wonderful time had by all.

Presentation is everything…

On the confianza (trust) front…

-I made a new friend! She’s 22, Guatemalan and not married! She just moved to Jacal from another department to work with the Centro de Salud (Health Center). Though I will admit that I still don’t fully understand her job (despite her efforts to clue me in) I have gotten the impression that she goes out to the Aldeas that are far away from the Centro de Salud and she meets with pregnant women and children up to age 4. She weighs them, charts their growth and sees if they are healthy and if not makes referrals to the centro de salud and local pharmacy…so she’s like a nurse, I think, which is pretty neat. It’s cool because we’re both so new to Jacaltenango that we don’t really know what people do here…like for fun. So we’ve resolved to explore the possibilities together.

It was a storybook romance really…

We met on a camioneta back from Huehue To Jacal. We both arrived right at the time that the Jacal Camioneta is supposed to pass when an Ayudante of another bus told us that the direct one had already come and gone and we should get on his bus. Well, this news concerned me as I’d never gone up to my site on anything but the direct bus and I didn’t want to have to fool around with changing busses a bunch of times. So, this girl was standing there and she said that she’d call her friends who were on the bus we needed to take to see if they’d really already gone by. Turns out the Ayudante was a liar and was just trying to get us to get on his bus because he wanted our fare. So we waited and got on the right bus towards Jacal. At first I was sitting next to an older man with a gruff expression that said “I carry a machete” because the bus was pretty full but then some people got off and there was an open seat, the girl I’d talked to at the bus stop snagged it and asked me if I wanted to sit by her. Admittedly, sometimes I really like my quiet time on the Camioneta. Don’t get me wrong- meeting people is great but sometimes people just want to talk your ear off and ask you lots of questions and 4 hours is a long time… but I was feeling like taking a risk so I went and sat by her and we chatted, shared what music was on our play lists, what we did for work, what places in Guatemala I’d visited etc. and then towards the end of the trip she asked me if I wanted to hang out sometime, maybe go up to Pana (the lake) or Mexico with her and her friends. I said I’d love to, she took my number and I arrived home feeling high from having made a potential new friend, my first female friend anywhere near my age…it was great.

- I also went to the pools with a group of teacher’s to celebrate dia del maestro (teacher appreciation day). There are these new pools that just opened up in cuatro caminos about an hour and a half away from here. Its kind of weird actually because although the construction has not been completed and right now they only have one pool up and ready for business, the park is still open. I had a moment while I was swimming in the pool where it really hit me, sort of a “we’re not in Kansas anymore toto” type thing. I was swimming around and when I came up to get a breath of air it all smelled and tasted like dirt. I opened my eyes only to see an enormous tractor redistributing dirt in the construction zone about five feet from the edge of the pool, and I thought, “never in America would this be happening.” Tons of children running around through the construction zone and jumping into the pool…that would just not be happening. So there was that and then there was the issue of appropriate pool attire. People just don’t wear bathing suits in this country; it’s not that weird that men would be wearing athletic shorts (or speedos…bleh) in the pool, I’ve seen that in the US but it is so odd to me that the women do not wear swimsuits. I cant tell you how many women I saw swimming in jean shorts and tank tops, or trouser shorts and party tops. It’s so…so different from anything I‘ve ever seen at any pool/lake whatever.. It’s like they’re ready to go for a hike, or head out to the club but instead they’re wading into the chlorinated water (that will definitely bleach those trouser shorts…take note ladies). It’s very different. I was one of the only women in the pool that was wearing an actual bathing suit…I felt really silly.

It certainly got the attention of one guy…who told one of my teachers that he thought I was pretty and wanted my number. Naturally this teacher pointed him out to me later to see if she could give him my number and told me that he wanted to give me a job at the pools…

I declined.

I’m not looking for a much older boyfriend… and as I later realized, having put two and two together, despite my father okaying it before I left (kidding), I’m not looking to date a narco-trafficker; as it is common knowledge around these parts that the people who run the new water park are also running drugs as part of wealthy drug cartels. So…

Yeah.

I do plan to return however, when they’ve finished the wave pool and water slides…because I think that will be fun. I’ll have to buy some jean shorts before then…

Speaking of fun…

- I woke up early enough the other day to catch the sunrise, so I took some photos.

- I am getting really excited for my trip to Antigua for the Peace Corps Fourth of July Party and All-Volunteer Conference! I can’t wait to see all of my friends from training again and maybe even make some new ones (I’m on a friendship-making high right now…)

- a couple of little girls gave me some “nail tattoos” so…I looked pretty awesome for about two hours until they fell off during a routine hand-wash.

- Currently reading, Slaughterhouse V. I am undecided as to whether this is “fun” or not…

On the frustrating front…

- I suck at guitar still. It’s horrible.

- I bought a ton of food that is going to go bad if I don’t eat it before I go to Antigua…woof.

- My dvd guy did not come through with a playable copy of Hellboy I & II; I don’t know why I want these movies so bad anymore…it’s just the challenge of finding them that is keeping me hungry for the chase… (what!?)

- I have a whole bunch of soda (okay, some are beer) cans that I’ve been smashing and collecting because I heard that little kids will take them from you and exchange them for money…but I haven’t found a kid to do that for me yet so I’ve got like…TONS of them and every time it rains they get all full of water and heavy and animals start to live in them…and I don’t like it.

- I tried to kill a cockroach that was on my curtain in my room and so I swatted really hard at it, missed, and effectively catapulted it directly towards me. This resulted in hysterical movement resembling some really cool dance steps…I hope. I also found a cockroach in my wardrobe, hanging out in the cup of one of my bras. This was inconsiderate, rude, and awfully fresh behavior. This has resulted in me distrusting every article of clothing in my possession. I have since adopted a ceremonious shake-out of all of my clothes before putting them on…hours of my life will be wasted on this action…I am displeased.

-there is no school this week because it is the break in-between quarters. I am getting really antsy and really need to get to work, I don’t feel like I’ve done anything. I want to start really doing my job…like for real. I’ve met all the directors and now I just want to start getting stuff DONE! But alas…I wait.

- news of my boyfriend/fiancé has not reached the men in my town, who continue to harass me. I'm pretty sure that someone just said to me as i was out walking in the rain "you should take off your hood and then you would just burn the water" which is either because i'm really, like...really hot...or because i have red hair...it'd be nice to know that red-head jokes can cross the cultural divide ha ha. This tells me that I have apparently not done enough…the next step in the sequence for operation “trick people into stop giving me unwanted attention” is to carry around a photo of my boyfriend/fiancé and flash it at people from now on. You can send photos to me at

morton.kristin@gmail.com

All submissions will be considered, no nudity please.

That’s all for now, hopefully I’ll have some cool stories after the fourth of July party…Until next time, I miss you guys, hope you all are healthy and happy and that you have a GREAT 4^th of July!

XOXO