moto-surfing and baba-ram

I fell asleep watching lords of dogtown and woke up thinking about surf ninjas.
good flick.
however, neither of those things have anything to do with this blog entry.
sorry if i misled you... sometimes these kinds of tangents are unavoidable.

still interested? great, i'm glad you hung in there... it's a long blog entry this week, so if you think you may need to take a bathroom break or refill your coffee cup/martini glass- you go right ahead.

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I was sitting alone in my room on a Friday night, drinking room-temperature white wine out of a warped, plastic, coffee mug when it hit me: I live in Guatemala. Weird.

There was a point, I don’t know when it happened, but things changed. “Going home” became “going back to site” as opposed to on a plane, bound for the states. I finally feel like I’m finally starting to have stuff figured out. Don’t get me wrong…I’m still surprised on a regular basis by things that happen around me…but my head isn’t tilting as far to the right when I try and understand -which is nice.

I‘ve even become accustomed to receiving calls and texts activating emergency procedures for natural disasters…Currently we’re on STANDFAST as we await a hurricane/tropical storm “Matthew”…this of course came as no surprise to me, mostly because I did laundry the other day and every time I do laundry it rains for so long afterwards that my clothes start to mold on the line I’ve strung up in the house. It’s good times.

I used to feel like a grounded teenager on homecoming weekend (yeah, it was serious) when we would get the STANDFAST order; (cue pouty, self-righteous behavior) especially when I would look out my window to blue skies and sunshine (very misleading) but after my experience with the landslide and heavy rains coming back from PDM and most recently, going back to site after a night in Xela (story to follow), I am starting to appreciate the rules a little bit, (our little girl’s growing up…sigh). don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of objections to being treated like a college-educated infant but I’m starting to understand the reasoning behind it a little bit better.

Just a few of the phrases I never want to hear again are, “corrase seño! Ya viene la tierra” “esta cayendo la tierra!!! Corrase!!!” (translation: Run miss! The earth is coming! The earth is falling! RUN!). All I can say is AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

If their goal by saying these things was to make this seño lose her cool, well done!

Once upon a time there was a peace corps volunteer who wanted to spend the night in Xela where she could go shopping, eat Indian food and hang out with her friends…

So I went to Xela on Friday morning to decompress a little from the past weeks’ activities. I was met by my darling, Claire and we celebrated our reuniting with a little bit of shopping. We bought groceries and hit up the brand new MegaPaca (basically an enormous ValueVillage/thriftstore) and then the market where I bought an ADORABLE pair of sandals.

Well, I’m an idiot and didn’t put the sandals in my backpack and instead carried them in the plastic bag that was given to me. Long story short, actually, not a long story at all- I forgot them. I left them on the micro bus (shuttle) that took us from the market to the park where our hostel was located. And that was that. Very upsetting.

I comforted myself with some Indian food…it never ceases to amaze me how wonderful that place is. Life-changing would probably be overly generous…but as I was just off of the emotional low of losing a brand-new pair of sandals (that were not in my budget for the month) I’m going to go ahead and say it, life-changing dinner. YUM. Then we went out for the night and I even danced (I know, shocking). I awoke the next morning, ate a great breakfast at the black cat (our hostel) and then hit the road. I couldn’t financially justify staying another night when I’d spent (and lost) the money I would have spent on the hostel for the second night on my sandals. So I started the clock on my 6-hour trip back to site. My plan was to get to Hue hue (the capital of the department that I live in) and decide whether or not the weather looked good enough to make the 4 hour trip up to my site, if it was raining I was going to stay, if it was sunny and nice, I was going to chance it. Well…it was sunny and nice, so I chanced it. As it turns out, not a good idea.

We were about 2 hours into the trip when we came across a landslide that had covered the entire highway and was about a football field wide. Well, everyone de-boarded the bus, and looked up at the landslide with concern. I had been listening to my ipod and missed the announcement about the next plan of action so I asked a woman who was trying to re-board the bus that I had just gotten off of. The woman explained to me that I would have to walk around the landslide to the other side where there were busses waiting to take me on to to my site, but to be very careful because the landslide was likely to fall more; I’d better hurry before it started raining harder. I did not like this. Based on my previous experience with the landslide and washed-out road, I was less than confident to travel in inclement weather conditions. I watched a group of women begin to walk through the landslide area on the road and decided to follow them through. As I got closer I was dissuaded by a construction worker that was standing next to a truck that was completely covered, minus the Cab of the truck, with debris from the landslide. He directed me to the muddy area off the right side of the highway, where a cornfield was planted on an incline and people were tromping through to the other side, insisting that it was safer for me.

I stood on the edge of the highway for a bit, contemplating the best plan of action…I was wearing loafers, not the best all-terrain shoes, and I looked up at the landslide to my left to try and gauge how dangerous it might be, thinking it would be better to just turn around and go back. Just then it started raining harder, and a couple of men came up beside me and offered to carry my bags and told me that I must hurry because the rain was getting worse. I was still deciding when they grabbed my things and had started to move, the last member of their group grabbed me by the wrist and told me (in broken English no less) to be careful because it was dangerous and pulled me along. I half-jogged my way through the mud following the line of people in front of me through the corn-field when I heard a sound and then people yelling for everyone to run because more rocks had begun falling down the landslide. Yeah, I got my life together really quick, climbing up rocks and mud (effectively covering myself in it) with the grace and poise of a drunken billy-goat, until I was (relatively) safe in the bus on the other side. Let’s put it this way, if I was playing “never have I ever” and someone said, “never have I ever almost wet my pants and cried while running through a muddy cornfield in a rainstorm during a landslide…” I would have to put a finger down, because that was most certainly me. I don’t think I stopped shaking until I was back in my home with some macaroni and cheese in my stomach and Bridget Jones in my DVD player.

I will say this however, these near-death (or…well, perceived by me to be “near-death”) experiences have taught me to appreciate, or at least realize the risk I put myself at on a daily basis…and I’ve got to say I would really, like REALLY rather be safe than sorry…alive than dead; I mean, I’ve got stuff I want to do that I would need to be alive for…so….I‘m going to think about that the next time I let some men grab my shit and drag me through a corn maze of doom (overly dramatic? Probably…but lets just let it go…).

DEEP BREATH.

Phew. Now that that’s over…

I am sad today. My dear friend and training-town pal, Brent, is going home. I do not know all of the details surrounding the situation nor understand the administration’s reasoning for letting such a great guy and PCV go, but that is what has happened. I do know that he will be greatly missed by his fellow PCVs and by the schools and community in which he has lived and worked in Alta Verapaz (aka, the jungle). We’ll always have San Luisito… sigh.

That’s all I can say about that right now.

In other news, Guatemala’s Independence Day came and went- mostly in the form of a huge parade (and an astounding number of marching bands). I had the (good?/mis?)fortune of living on the parade-route so I was able to experience the parade from my window/roof/doorstep/shower as it went by. Here’s what I saw: A lot of adorably-clad children in matching outfits, a lot of scantily-clad adolescent girls (in matching outfits), a lot, and I mean A LOT of marching bands, and a few groups of traditionally-clad Mayan men, women and children (the majority carrying some variation on a basket of fruit). Each school in the area had their own space in the parade and had been practicing for weeks beforehand to bring their "A" game.
Here I am, watching the parade and enjoying myself and I start to notice that the groups of kids who are dressed the same are like, REALLY dressed the same- the exact same, down to earrings, socks and shoes and the Peace Corps Volunteer in me got really…well, frustrated.

For example: a group of girls are all playing tambourines and walking down the street wearing the same boots, skirts, crop-tops, vests, cowboy hats, and earrings. I think about this; I know that the boots go for at least 200Q (having looked in to buying some myself) and let‘s face it, the store isn‘t letting these kids borrow the boots, which, from the looks of them, are all brand-new. Then let’s factor in the money spent on all of the clothing - how much does a spandex crop-top go for these days? I can’t even begin to guess. The issue that I had was that as I’m looking at all of these kids, who will surely outgrow these outfits within the year, all I began to see was the incredible amount of money that was spent to make them all look uniform.

So this is me: I’m working in the schools, preaching about the importance of good hygiene and that every child have the necessary items available to them to aid in maintaining good hygiene, freely acknowledging that it will cost each family a little bit of money and being told that there simply isn’t enough.

In some schools, mostly urban but some rural as well, it has not been a big problem to have each student bring in their own toothbrush, cup, towel etc. to leave in the classroom, however, there are also schools and communities where my efforts have been met with resistance, where director’s have voiced their feelings about the school’s perceived inability to participate in the program on the basis of the financial constraints of the parents of the students.

Now, cue up to the end of the school-year, I’m watching the Independence Day Parade…and I’m thinking, “okay, so they can all afford the matching hoop earrings and knee-high boots…but we're lacking money for a toothbrush? okay...hmmm."
I suppose I can’t judge it too hard, what with all of the money I have gladly spent on Halloween costumes over the years against how painful it was for me to spend money on things that I actually needed…like band-aids or countertop spray... It’s a priority thing, I understand that. It just tells me that I’m going to have to work harder to make the parents of these children see the benefits of preventative health enough to make it a priority, to make it competitively valuable enough to spend money on. Okay….I’ll…do it!

I just realized that this blog entry is getting to be a little lengthy… and I’m getting tired so I’ll just throw these last little bits out there- take them as you will.

-I have really comfortable shoulders apparently (I will assume it‘s genetic, thanks mom &dad); I know this because people are constantly sleeping on them when I am on the bus.

-Our pressure cooker has broken so I have resolved to cooking beans the slow way…and I think I like them better, despite the fact that they take FOREVER.

-I am planning to cook and enormous feast as a Despedida (goodbye-party) for PCV Marisha who lives in the next town over. Don’t worry, I’ll take pictures.

-I have planned a really sweet PDM (project design and management) workshop that is finally going to happen on the 4th of next month; I had a really good time making posters for it. More picture taking.

-School ends on the 18th of next month so I’ve got one more visit and then a bunch of unstructured time ahead of me…which means you should all probably be expecting some more haikus.

-I have been learning, “sitting on the dock of the bay” on my guitar. My fingers hurt.

-I wish I was going to be in the states for Halloween…I really want to carve a pumpkin and dress up like a clown.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading…I hope some of it is entertaining! Miss you guys!

Peace & Love,

Kristin

p.s. my "fast" internet has expired for this month...so the pictures that go with this entry will eventually surface...maybe next month...

LOVE LOVE LOVE!