guate is happening...

guate is happening?

let me tell you...

So…when insect repellent says it’s good for “8 hours of protection” it does NOT mean that you’ll be okay 10 hours later.

Apparently, as is the case with sunscreen, reapplication of insect repellent is also key. Noted.

I also totally thought of mosquitoes as more of a “dusk” bug…as in they only come out in the evening…but as I was just bitten at 8:30 AM I am going to go ahead and say that my ideas of when they come out was wrong, much how I was under the misapprehension that roosters only crow at dawn which is also, VERY WRONG.

I am learning so much.

On other things I’ve learned… I hate animals in Guatemala. Admittedly, I wasn’t particularly crazy for dogs in the states, but I grew up with a dog and certainly did not hate them. In Guatemala however, I feel like a good portion of the dogs are…like rats. They carry diseases and the majority of them that are living on the street have incredible medical problems that can, at the sight of them, effectively make me sick to my stomach. I want to help them but… I don’t want to touch them.

Certain types of “mange” for a dog translates to scabies on people. Scabies are gross, I think we can all agree on that. Oh, and lets not forget fleas because they can come home from a street dog with you and infest your mattress and anyone who’s had fleas can tell you, they’re a real hassle to get rid of and their bites suck,. oh and ringworm is gross too… gross.

Disclaimer: the following story is sad/graphic so if you’re not good with that stuff… don’t read it.

Skip to section that says, “On to other things…”

A few weeks ago a dog was hit by a car outside of my window. The car, naturally, drove on and left this puppy crying and bleeding in the street and people would look at it while they walked by, comment on it and continue walking. Oh, and this was great, I’m pretty much crying and feeling sick because it’s so unfortunate and the yelping and crying is pretty unbearable when I hear a dog fight break out…of course. other dogs are attacking the dog that was hit by the car while it tries to drag it’s body to the side of the road. Nice, real nice. I wanted to go out and help the dog but as previous blogs would evidence, they’re always trying to attack me and I was afraid that if I picked up the wounded dog that I would (a) hurt the animal more (b) get bitten by the animal, or (c) the other dogs that had congregated would attack me (either misunderstanding my intentions with the wounded dog or because they‘re mean street dogs). Luckily, after about an hour, the “owners” of the dog, (I say “owners” because I don’t consider most people who have dogs here to take much responsibility for their animals, I think that being a “pet owner” entails a little bit more than giving the dog leftover tortillas) came out and picked up the dog and took it home, where it probably died and was thrown somewhere for someone else to deal with, like most things. I know that this is probably what happened because the last time an animal died in the street near my house it was thrown in the area where we compost our organic trash and burn the inorganic and my roommate and I found it after following a particularly foul odor; it was really unpleasant.

The other thing that really gets me about animals is that there isn’t a Veterinarian in my town. Why? Well, there was a vet but he couldn’t stay in business up here because NO ONE took their animals in to him. No one has enough money, or cares enough about their animals to do preventative health measures like vaccinations and getting them neutered or spayed or to take their dog in when it gets hit by a car/ attacked by another dog, etc.

I was reminded of a time when I was a kid and one of my friends and I found a pigeon with a broken wing and we were really torn up about it- so much so that we got our babysitter to drive us out to a bird aviary where we thought that it could get some help and be safe. I wanted nothing more than to take the dog that was hit by the car to an animal hospital but there is just nothing like that here.

On top of the occasional car accident, there are some dogs that are so…pathetically ill that I wish someone would just put them out of their misery. There is one dog in particular that has gaping sores where a tumor has obviously ruptured some part of him and to look at him is actually painful for me, it’s like he is so miserable I want to free him by giving him euthanasia. Guatemala would really benefit from some sort of “spay/neuter your animal” initiative…and a dog catcher.

I would like to think that some of the dogs that I see that are really ill and poorly cared for with matted fur etc. could be rehabilitated…but their chances of anyone doing that for them are so bleak. I really wish I was more of an animal lover, that I could do something to help these animals without the fear that they would get me sick or otherwise harm me. Breaks my heart that I don’t have the skills to do that for them.

Sorry to have ranted on a bit above…it’s really been getting to me.

On to other things…

I was on the bus a few weeks ago with some friends and we saw a guy with a T-shirt that said, “Simon says, ‘go fuck yourself.’” He was like holding a baby and didn’t look like he would say something so audacious but there it was. It was a perfect example of how all American t-shirts eventually get bought and worn, even if they say something really stupid. They’ll make it down to markets where people don’t speak that language, nor care what it says, a shirt is a shirt.

Another example (that to this day I really wish I had photographed) was on a woman in traje (Mayan clothing) who was wearing the traditional woven skirt and a t-shirt that said, “I heart frat boys.” Now, lets not pretend like I wouldn’t have worn that shirt at one point in my life…I do kind of heart frat boys; but the contrast of a woman in traditional Mayan clothing wearing a shirt that said she loved frat boys was pretty incredible. You know she probably just saw the heart and that the shirt was pink and went for it. So rest assured that when you see a shirt that says something really silly on it that’s on sale because someone who ordered it misread how popular it was going to be, it will be worn somewhere (and it will make someone who understands what’s on it laugh).

After last month’s Antigua festivities I was pretty thoroughly Antigua’d-out…lucky me- I’m going back (for a root canal)! I have been having a lot of pain in one of my teeth on the left side of my mouth. At first it wasn’t bad but when it got to the point where I couldn’t even chew oatmeal on that side of my mouth…I decided to go ahead and make the call.

Before I made my appointment to get it taken care of I wanted to have some idea about what I was going to need to get done. Luckily I have some awesome dentist friends here in my site! I went and saw my friend Sara and she took an X-ray of my tooth which showed that it’s got a bit of a dark spot inside it. It looks like when I had my dental work done in the US before leaving (it was pretty substantial…energy drinks are really bad for your teeth, fyi) that there was a cavity that they filled for me where they did not grind off enough of the cavity part before filling it. So the tooth is sealed on the outside but it’s…got inner problems. So…the prognosis is that I will be needing a root canal. I’m somewhat concerned, having never had a root canal before. Meh, I’m sure it’ll go fine. I got an appointment for this Friday…which turns out to be Friday the 13^th… I hope nothing weird happens.

Something to look forward to though, is that while I’m there I’m going to treat myself and my newly fixed teeth to some good food, so that’s exciting.

I’d better get going, the post man isn’t going to stalk himself. I’m just so excited for packages that are in the mail for me!

Until next time

Make good choices, wear your insect repellent, pet your animals, don’t buy a ridiculous shirt just because it’s on sale, and stay away from energy drinks.

Peace & Love,

Kristin

　

　

　

　

the 4th and other shenanigans

I got bored today, so I cut myself some bangs.
They don’t look very good, so I bobby pinned them back and just like that I was back in junior high, growing-out my bangs again.
Bangs are one of those things that always seem like a good idea when you don’t have them but as soon as you get them you wish you hadn’t done that. Oh well, they’ll grow. Life goes on.

On to more exciting things…

4^th of July

Or rather, on the 3^rd of July Peace Corps Volunteers left their sites in various rural communities in Guatemala to get together in Antigua to have a little party…

Some of us arrived a few days before to attend the All-Volunteer Conference at the office where we learned about natural disasters, coffee plantations certifying organic, Appreciative Inquiry etc. etc. One of the benefits of attending (besides tantalizing lectures) was that we were able to meet volunteers who we would probably never see during our service otherwise, turns out there are quite a few of us here.

As for the party, we all convened around noon to start the festivities. There was a stage with a huge projection of the world cup game on inside and a tent with tables and chairs set up outside near the BBQ area where there were tables filled with potato salad, chips and all the fixings for burgers and hotdogs. People were decked out in their red, white, and blue and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. Naturally about an hour into the party it started raining like hell, but hey, that’s Guatemala for you.

I sang the National Anthem for the party…

After the first verse of the song I lost my way a bit… I looked up and saw my friends standing with their hands on their hearts and some of them with their hands at their brow line doing a salute and I lost my concentration and giggled…luckily then everyone started cheering and stuff so it wasn’t completely awkward.

Then I continued to sing the rest of the song the whole way through and though I botched the high note a little…I feel it went well. Numerous people supposedly took videos of it and I had every intention of putting one up on here…but they have yet to surface. So you’ll just have to imagine it.

Once I finished singing I treated myself to some Moza (beer) and relaxed with my friends. I had a great time.

There was a talent show portion of the 4^th of July party as well and it never ceases to amaze me how talented people are. It also made me really jealous that I cant play the guitar yet…maybe for next year I’ll prepare a little something…better start practicing now.

Then, like that (snaps) the fun was over and it was back to site! I got back to Jacal and went to my schools to see how the progress with their Rincones de Salud are coming… my job really sucks sometimes.

Not only did the majority of my schools not have their Rincones up, there were several teachers who claimed that they didn’t know what they needed to have (despite my leaving a detailed packet and instructions with the school’s director). One example; I arrive at the school, fend off some inappropriate flirting by the director of the school and go classroom to classroom to see their Rincones. Well, I show up in one class and ask the teacher if I could see their Rincon and he says, “sure miss, here it is” and points to a corner where there are about 15 brooms and not one thing more. I go to another classroom and ask to see their “Rincon de Salud” and the director steps in and corrects me, saying that I meant to say, “Rincon de Aseo.” I turn to the director and say, “Rincon de Salud.” Well, naturally they didn’t have it. The reason this pissed me off is that most of the schools already had a “Rincon de Aseo” in their classrooms before we started working with them, where they stack all of their cleaning equipment and some personal hygiene stuff; but it does not meet the requirements to be a Rincon de Salud, which is specific to the Healthy Schools Program, because it is lacking too many things. It was especially frustrating because the director was trying to pass off something they already had when I started working with them as something that they had done for the program, when that is just not the case at all. It was obvious to me that the director had not passed the information on to the teachers and when I asked him what he had done to explain it to the teachers he crept in towards me took my hand and told me that he really needed me to, “hold his hand on the project.” I just about grabbed him by his little shoulders and shook him, I was so annoyed. Please don’t do any work and hit on me, that’s what I like, clearly.

Naturally, after having some variation of that experience a few times, I went to one of my schools that has very few resources and expected the same. We’re talking garbage everywhere, kids without shoes, broken windows and glass everywhere, no water and not enough classrooms. I was blown away by their efforts towards the tasks I had assigned to them. All of the classrooms had a start on their Rincon de Salud, the majority had their Dado or Rouleta (dice or roulette) de Hygiene and a poster that had the “Promesa de Vida” (basically a vow to take care of yourself in regard to health) written on it. I left this school filled with a renewed sense of optimism about my job. Only to be battered down again by visiting another bad school the next day…so it goes. Haha

Then like that (snaps again) it was time to go back to Antigua for Reconnect. I had a great laid-back week in Antigua with my fellow training group pals. It was so great to stay up late hanging out and then get up early the next morning and see everyone again for training activities and later in the week, Spanish classes. It was a nice opportunity to get to know some people better that we didn’t have the chance to get to know very well during training. It was also helpful to have some more Spanish classes- although I have definitely improved my Spanish since arriving at my site, there are still things that confuse me, there are so many things I can improve on.

Oh, and supposedly Kirsten Dunst was in Antigua while we were there… someone who was staying in Damian’s hostel told him that she saw her in the park…so every time we saw a blonde or a large gathering of people the joke was, “oh my gosh, Kirsten Dunst!”

We never did see her…

I roomed with Claire during this week at the Hostel and we had a great time sampling all of the fine cuisine that Antigua has to offer (well as much as we could on our budget) and I’d say we did pretty good. We got Sushi one night that was excellent! I was afraid at first but I reasoned that I couldn’t get any sicker eating sushi at a restaurant in Antigua than I’d already been in this country from hot-dogs in the park or drinks made with tap water; so I chanced it. It was a good choice.

We also went to this funky little restaurant near the park that had gourmet ice cream. At first glance the restaurant doesn’t look like a restaurant at all- it looks like an art gallery with tables in it. There were 4 tables total and the room couldn’t have been bigger than 10’ x 20’. The draw of the restaurant was that it had fancy, home-made ice cream in interesting flavors like, Peach-Rose, and Apple Chipotle. The guy who owned/ran the place in my opinion was a bit well, bizarre. I knew I wasn’t going to like him pretty early on when we asked how much the ice cream was and when he told us, “20Q,” my darling Claire responded with “wow, jeeze that‘s expensive” or some variation thereof. And he countered with, “come on, 20Q? that’s like 2 dollars.”

Okay…first of all, that’s not 2 dollars, its more like $2.60, it’s using the 10 to 1 conversion rate that gets gringos into trouble, but that’s beside the point because we don’t get paid in dollars. It annoys me when people assume that we a) can’t do math and b) get paid in dollars. I guess I understand, I mean, we’re gringos but still, Annoying.

Well, none of the ice-cream flavors particularly appealed to me so when he asked me what flavor I wanted I told him I was not going to be having any ice cream; he looked at me like he didn’t understand so I added, “I’m actually in search of a brownie today so…I’ll wait” and he was like, “well, we have brownies” and he said it like he thought I was an idiot, like it was obvious that they had brownies. Excuse me, it wasn’t on the menu, how was I to know that? Of course, how silly of me.

Incidentally, it was the BEST brownie I’ve ever had…

So we’re all sitting at one of the tables, eating our various desserts and looking at all of the art around the room. I was noticing that there were lots of paintings by the same artists and I had a sneaking suspicion that the guy running the restaurant was also the artist. Well, not surprisingly, he was, and when one of us made a comment about one of his paintings he stepped in and started telling us his life story and what his art meant about feminism… all I got was that naked women = feminism. I don’t know much about it…he continued to tell us about how he is from the Bahamas and how his family brought electricity to the “natives.” The “natives” were apparently very ungrateful and resented his family for it and so he grew up amidst all of this adversity to then move to the states where he was still an outsider (because he grew up somewhere else), and finally ended up in “land of opportunity” aka Antigua, where he started a sort of cooperative for unknown artists and opened a restaurant/gallery. So all-in-all a pretty fascinating story and while he just wasn’t for me, the desserts were pretty delightful…so…I’ll probably be back.

After my week spent with hot showers, friends and access to awesome food I hopped on a bus and started the 9-hour trip back to my site. I successfully made it back in one day, I was really eager to be back home, not living out of my suitcase and spending outrageous amounts of money (but had I had more money I would have broken up the trip a bit, stopped in Xela and eaten some Indian food, alas, next time).

Since I’ve been back I have:

- tried to compose a wish list…so far it only consists of Boxes of Macaroni and Cheese and Neutrogena Fresh Foaming Cleanser in the blue bottle. I think it’s a good start.

- washed some laundry, hung it up and watched it get rained on for multiple hours…it’s still drying.

- visited one of my schools that had done nothing that I had asked. Sure.

- finished reading Slaughterhouse V and Marked (which is a new book series that is pretty much a combination of Harry Potter and Twilight, that Ms. Kristin Poggi sent me, awesome. I love you).

-received a package from the Linda (Lauren’s mom) with cards, a book, bubblegum and a teenage mutant ninja turtles DVD. Thanks so much! It definitely brought back some memories…

-killed a moth in my room the size of my hand. I showed it to my roommate and she was like, “ay si, mariposa!” (“oh yeah, butterfly”) and it made me wonder if it was the same word for both moth and butterfly…because as far as I’m concerned they are ENTIRELY different and should be labeled as such.

- saw a dog eating a diaper. It was terrible. Dogs are gross.

- written this blog entry, which is very long and I think I will stop now.

I am currently preparing for Dr. Sergio Mack’s (aka my boss') visit to my site for the meeting we have planned with all of our directors and various other community members…which will be happening tomorrow morning, so wish me luck!

I hope this finds everyone healthy and happy! I miss you all very, VERY much!

XOXO,

Kristin

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

I'M ENGAGED!

….okay, okay. I’m not engaged. Put the phone down, oh, and put a “stop payment” on that check to the catering company. Good. Crisis averted.

As a single woman, aged 24 years, living in Guatemala, I have to field questions about my love life (or lack thereof) all the time, usually from men. This is difficult. At first I was honest with people about my single status but, I quickly learned that honesty is overrated. If you let someone know that you’re single- even if they’re married, in more cases than not, they’re going to ask you for your number or think they have a fighting chance at taking you out on a date.

As I’ve written before, this can cause some really awkward times for me. Usually saying something about “not talking to strangers” or that “I don’t speak Spanish on the weekends…because the weekends are for resting?” (yeah, I said that), or another lame combination of excuses and uncomfortable mumbling.

Alas, I have turned to lying:

e.g. the formulation of my fake fiancé. Mi prometido/novio.

Now, had I made up a boyfriend in the US when I was living in the US I feel like my friends would’ve been…well… concerned. But here? I shared my shameful lie with another volunteer and was met with nothing but support and reinforcing examples of why it’s a good idea to lie to people about having a significant other sometimes.

Now I am faced with the task of spreading this information to the guys who hit on me in my town…

End goal? To stop being harassed every time I leave the house.

It’s probably because I’m really, really pretty and I’ve got a great personality… or, more likely, it’s because I’m white and American…and female.

Sometimes I don’t even want to leave my house because I don’t want to have to deal with the constant CH CH (that’s how they get your attention) and poorly strung together sentences in English. I think my favorite one so far is, “wow, baby, I love you.”

I like hearing that just about as much as I like seeing my own blood on my hands when I kill a mosquito. GREAT! VERY NICE! Not.

Meh. Cleansing breath…..

Changing music now…. HEY SOULD SISTER (Train)

Mood has improved.

I’m back.

So other than my little silly feminine struggles…

I’ve been:

battling the bugs.

- They’re EVERYWHERE.

I have noticed that the worse the weather gets outside the more bugs I find inside. This is nothing new, it’s how it works everywhere as far as I know but, the bugs that I’ve been finding in my room are…well, not what I was expecting. The spider population had a little spike as soon as the rain hit but I’ve maintained a relatively low amount of them with careful vigilance. The bug that is giving me the most trouble is the damn rollie pollies. I don’t know what they’re doing here-and they’re everywhere. They’re in my clothes, they’re on my towel when I get out of the shower, crawling in my bowls of freshly disinfected fruits and veggies, and landing in mummified little crusty balls on my pillow! I’m not afraid to touch them, that they’ll bite me or crawl on me in my sleep or anything like that after having spent a good portion of my childhood playing with the stupid things, I’m just… not sure what to do. I’m not really keen on playing with them now, though believe me, the opportunity is right here; it’s just so…curious and annoying. I guess though, I’ve really got to count my blessings on this one; it could definitely be worse.

Cooking.

-Culinary TRIUMPHS.

I made a particularly delicious batch of my mom’s pie-crust cinnamon rolls and Broccoli Soup this week.

Naturally, I devoured the cinnamon rolls in about a day…and continue to downsize the rest of the soup into smaller and smaller Tupperware containers.

Fending off thieves.

- LADRONA!

A woman tried to rob me in the market in Xela. She circled around me a couple of times and then bumped into me and as I tried to keep moving I grabbed for my purse only to find her hand in it! I felt so violated! So I got her hand out of there and called her a “Ladrona!” (thief). Boy, really got her there...

Oh well, I guess I learned an important lesson; A) That I don’t like thieves, B) even when I think I’m being vigilant I am still a target for crime and C) That I need to learn some meaner words to call people who try and rob me. Luckily she didn’t get any of my stuff, but man oh man, did she succeed in making me mad!

Jamming out

- Practice, Practice, Practice!

I’ve been pretending to be able to play along to Jack Johnson and John Mayer songs on my guitar…I can’t wait till I can actually play…that’ll be even better.

Stalking people (?)

- Hellboy?

So I went to the DVD guy who told me he’d get me Hellboy in English but, well, it looks like I’m not the only liar around here…

I’ve got a line on another copy from a competing DVD salesman….we’ll see how this pans out, I know how supply and demand works…

What am I talking about?

Okay. Well girlfriend’s gotta go now, I’m tired…and I think I’ve got a skype date with Dad soon. I hope everyone is doing well! I’m so proud of all of my newly graduated friends and family! Woop woop!

Peace & Love!

p.s. sorry there's no photos...the internet won't load them...also...i didnt take any. AH. sorry. haha. next time. I'll do work on taking my camera around. XOXO!