Bug-a-Boo

Bug-a-Boo.

That is the kind of persistence that will win you a radio contest…

Unfortunately that skill-set is not appreciated by me. Sorry.

And now- an excerpt from the song of this entry’s namesake: you’re welcome.

You make me wanna throw my pager out the window
Tell MCI to cut the phone poles
Break my lease so I can move
'Cause you a bug a boo, a bug a boo
I wanna put your number on the call block
Have AOL make my e-mails stop
'Cause you a bug a boo
You buggin what? You buggin who? You buggin me!
And don't you see it ain't cool

It's not hot that you be callin' me
Stressin' me, pagin' my beeper
You just don't stop
And it's not hot
That you be leavin' me messages
Every 10 minutes and then you stop by
When I first met you, you were cool
But it was game, you had me fooled
'Cause 20 minutes after I gave you my number
You already had my mailbox full

…thank you Destiny’s Child for giving me something to hold onto in these trying times…

I get so excited when i make new friends; i feel like i'm more integrated and like i'm finally figuring stuff out; like people are starting to see me less as the gringo who is passing through and start to respect me as a person with whom they live and work.
So… I made a friend and i thought it was good thing until i realized that this was not a new "friend" but that this was actually a new "suitor." this was made obvious by the frequent calls and texts, we're talking multiple times a day (we’re talking anywhere between 5-15 times a day). So i was forced (perhaps prematurely…perhaps not) to terminate the friendship before it got any more “serious.”
I somewhat dislike confrontation and I had to do it twice. The first time I told him that he was calling me too much and it was making me uncomfortable and to please stop. A week passed and I thought my problem was gone, but alas, it began again. The second time I told him that he was very nice but I would prefer if he did not call or text me anymore because it was really bothering me. It has been 1 week since I did that…as of today…so hopefully we will not see a repeat performance.
Since said confrontation I have been rather…awkward walking around town (moreso than usual), afraid that I may run into him. I get really flustered when I am trying to tell someone to stop…especially in Spanish. I had also never had to do that before…I mean in the states people generally understand that if I’m ignoring you that it = not interested, leave me alone. Here it appears, it’s a little bit different.

Persistence is apparently the key. Someone HAS TO be reinforcing this behavior. That’s the only explanation I can think of.

I even asked my roommate, a Guatemalan woman, what I should do about all of the calls that I was getting. I said, “he’s really friendly but he is calling me A LOT and I don’t want him to get the wrong idea, I also do not want to answer my phone 10 times a day just to talk about how I am doing and come up with excuses as to why I can’t go out for coffee with him.” (I know what you guys are thinking, “Kristin, come on, it’s coffee, don’t be so cold,” well,  if you feel that way, YOU go out to coffee with him.) so my roommate says, “oh yeah, well… just answer the phone when you want to talk to him.” so…what if I never want to talk to him? Yikes.

It is my fault. I openly acknowledge this. I gave him my phone number- but I feel like I was kind of tricked (also…as we’ve discussed, I have a hard time saying, “no.”) What happened was he had just seen me at his aunt’s tienda and I left without talking to him (because i have a tendancy to be antisocial with strangers who aren't women in tiendas…don't worry about it). So he got in his car and decided to drive towards my house (because everyone and their mom knows where I live) and he comes alongside me and idles while I walk and try and ignore how awkward it is. Then I’m right outside of my house about to cross the street and he is like, “you’re Kristin, right?” and I’m thinking…crap, I was SO CLOSE to getting home! “yes, that’s me, nice to meet you” and he introduced himself as Maria (tienda lady’s) nephew. So I decided to be nice…because I love tienda maria and don’t want it to get back to her that I’m rude to people.

Conversation progresses, he invites me for coffee, I say no, that I have stuff to do; he insists, I insist, “no” (so far so good). Then he asks me if I go to Hue hue a lot, I say that I do, about 1-2 times a month and he continues to tell me he’s got a house in hue hue right next to taco mansion (every peace corps volunteer is familiar with that place, it’s delightful) and he tells me that no one is living there and that if I would like I can stay there with my friends when I go into town instead of staying in a hotel, that he would just make me a copy of the key.
Now…in the states this might be weird but I swear to you it’s pretty normal here- people are super friendly and they all feel kind of sorry for us for being all alone. So I decide that…well, I don’t really need a place to stay because I’ve got a friend who lives in hue hue already and I can stay with her; so then he changes his tactic and says that he may be going to hue hue soon and that he could call me the next time he goes to see if I’m going there and need a ride. Well…he got me there, travel by car is much preferable to a 4 hour bus trip. So I gave him my number and said, “sure, the next time you go to hue hue if you would let me know that would be great.” after he got my number he asked if he could stop by and knock on my door and say hi to me sometime. I said, “no, I’d prefer you didn’t, please call first because sometimes I am busy or bathing or something and don’t want to see anyone,” he decides that’s acceptable, tries to get me to go and get coffee with him one more time and then let me go into my house. little did i know it was only the beginning of something that would be essentially really awkward and annoying.
One example, nothing more:
I talked to him on the phone earlier in the afternoon, told him that I was sorry that I would not be able to get coffee with him because I was busy for the rest of the day, that I wanted to exercise, shower and that I had a skype date with my dad at 8. He says, “cool, well have a great workout, have a great shower, and have a great chat with your dad, rest well” (literally what was said). so I figured this is the last I am going to hear from him that day right? Wrong. I am exercising and my phone is ringing off the hook so I go over to see who could possibly be calling me 5x in a row (from previous experience when calls happen like that it is usually an indication that something bad has happened, I thought for sure it was my dad, my step mom or peace corps and it worried me). Well, no, no worries, it’s just the dude who got my number who knows that I’m busy but has decided to take a walk and has conveniently found himself right outside of my house. I put my phone on silent, ignored his text messages and continued with my workout. Then I heat up some water, get my bucket bath on and come back into the room to find that I’ve missed more calls and more text messages saying that he is outside my house again…wanted to see if he could stop by and say hello. NO. so then I’m fooling around on the internet (because I made up the skype date with my dad, I’m a liar…I feel bad but…I needed an excuse and people don’t take, “facebook chatting with my friends” seriously) and I’m missing call after call from him, and a text that says he’s near my house again, he’d like to say, “hi.” So I got really fed up and texted him, “I’m chatting with my dad, good night.” was a little creeped out that he’d been outside of my house so many times that day, despite me having told him I was busy…actually in hind-site… while I was letting him know I was busy he probably translated that to “I’m going to be home for the rest of the night,” jokes on me I guess.

I gather from this experience that what happens is that the guy calls and calls and calls until the gal decides to go out with him so he’ll stop. Then somewhere in there there’s a switch that flips and the woman decides not to fight it anymore and they get married, she has some kids, and he takes a lover or lovers…
What? That was weird... sorry....
I’m really like…anti-Guatemalan-dudes right now. I keep finding out that all of these men, whom I’ve met as part of a married couple with children, have a lover or lovers and some with babies with their lovers. I also just heard a story about a woman who came home after work only to find that all of her belongings were thrown out on the street because her husband decided that he wanted his mistress to move in and his wife to move out. Did he tell her? No, he humiliated her in front of the whole town (even beyond having a lover other than his wife) kicking her out of her own home leaving her to carry all of her things to her mother’s house. Everyone still talks about how sad it was for her. AW-FUL.
The thing that really gets me about it is that all of this is generally known by people and it is quietly tolerated. I mean…These women just…raise their children and maintain the home while their husbands do whatever they want- and further, if the woman decides to leave her husband because of said infidelities that SHE is the one who is looked down on. I mean…What. The. Hell.

I know that this happens in the US, maybe more than I know about but I feel like I would be completely justified in leaving someone who wasn’t faithful to me and I feel that I would have the support of many people in doing so. In fact…women in the states who tolerate their husbands affairs are often the ones who are looked down on for not having the balls to leave them. These are confusing times.

I don’t want to make it seem as though there are no good relationships down here or that women can‘t leave their husbands because of some cultural rule, there are women who have left their husbands and started over and there are just as many people who are happily married or dating and clearly love and are true to one another; but the plethora of infidelity stories have worn me down. I'm starting to feel like a real wet blanket.
That’s all I have to say about that.

I may have to take a break. Deep breath.
--------

On to stuff that doesn’t make me so heated…

Okay.
So I had a PDM (Project Design and Management) Workshop and it went GREAT! I was having a really good Spanish day…so that is always good news. During the workshop we introduced the different parts that make up a successful project. We had the participants make maps of their schools to help identify where the need in their school was and then we wrote objectives, did an example of a action plan, a plan for monitoring progress and how to evaluate whether or not the project was successful. Then we worked on compiling proposals to ask for money to fund the projects because as anyone can tell you- there is never enough money.
Basically we reminded them of the tools that they already have at their disposal (with few new tricks) that they can utilize to carry out a successful project in the school.
I took some photos… so here are those.


ordering the steps in the life of a project...



making maps of their schools

 I do lament that we didn’t get this workshop out sooner in the year…since the school-year is just about to end, but I hope that it inspired some of our schools to be proactive in starting infrastructure projects that are necessary for the students to practice healthy habits…like faucets for the kids to wash their hands.
We shall see…


For Marisha’s despedida dinner I cooked an epic meal… but I (oddly) did not take a lot of photos because I was cooking and cleaning up a lot…but I did take a few…
I’ve decided that garbanzo beans are amazing- the amount of stuff you can make with them is outrageous. I had so many garbanzo beans leftover from the party (because they expand to like 3X their dry-size when you cook them…just fyi) that I was able to make another batch of hummus and two batches of garbanzo curry the next week…which I fed to Damian, Juan-Jo and Maria. I plan to make it again soon… but back to the dinner party for Marisha’s despedida:

I made up a little dining room in the spare bedroom and I had the *brilliant* idea to make table-cloths out of butcher paper and put crayons on the table. This was awesome and I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before…from now on I am always going to do that when I do dinner with friends- the further the night goes on, the more awesome the tablecloth becomes, also the clean-up is timely.
We had falafal, pita bread, hummus, taziki sauce, camote (sweet potatoes), rice tabouleh salad, carrot cake (with cream cheese frosting), and Elephant ears. Oh and Mojitos…

Basically, I think the party went pretty well.

Falafal

Camote...yum

I also rearranged my room so that the “chi energy” can circulate better…well, I was bored one afternoon and needed a change, thought I’d look up how to feng-shui my room, so there’s that. I don’t have all of the necessary components available to do it completely effectively, but I had fun doing it. So I think it was a win.
I had everything wrong before, it was all set up to cut my chi energy, which is bad, I think. Ceiling lamp directly above my bed = bad, mirror on the wall opposite my bed = the worst, and bed was not facing the door. All wrong.
Now my room has way better energy… maybe.
It also said that the first thing that you see in the morning should be something that makes you happy- like a piece of art or something…so I’m going to make some sort of painting during the break that’s coming up. I hope I’m an artist…otherwise I may not be able to put it on my wall, well at least the one opposite my bed. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Okay, this blog is getting kind of long…but more than that I’m tiring of writing. So…here are some last minute thoughts:

- I spent about a half and hour trying to open a jar of pickles today and I hurt my hand. I’m disappointed.

- I think I’m really going to miss snow while I live here. I love it when it’s snowy out and I’m inside…preferably in a cabin with a fire and hot chocolate (with peppermint schnapps and or bailey’s Irish cream).

- I went back to the water park but the wave pool is still not done… also, wore jean shorts for a portion of the day.

- rocked French-braid pigtails yesterday. Felt like a 10-year-old.

- I bathed in a sweat lodge. Let me paint a picture for you, I’m crawling through the smallest hut opening known to man in my bathing suit so I can get inside a little sweat lodge to…sweat and bathe. It was pretty neat.

- it’s nice weather again! My laundry is drying really quickly and I love it.

- school is almost out, I have a few more schools to visit and then…well, I guess I’m going to have to find something else to do. I’ll let you know.

- I changed the look of my blog the other day… like it?

- I have started to forget the normal way to say things in English, for example, I was trying to say that something wouldn’t do/work and I said, that wont serve. As in what you say in Spanish, no sirve. I don’t know when this happened but after going to the water park and talking in English with other volunteers it was apparent that I can’t speak. I also just read through my blog up to here and saw that i wrote, "i do lament" when i was talking about my PDM workshop...yet another expression that i use here often, a little awkward in English. Oh well.

- a child was sitting in front of me in a van and he turned around and stared at me for an incredible amount of time. First I smiled at him: nothing, then I waved at him and said hello: nothing, 10 minutes passes: still staring, blank expression. I stuck out my tongue at him: he turned back around.

A view from the bus to one of my aldeas...if you squint you can see mexico...

- I really miss recycling/ organized trash management.

Okay. I’m done.
I really miss my friends and family right now…
hug each other for me.

Peace & love,
Kristin