Fleas: Not Just for Animals

I had fleas. I bet you thought that only pets/animals got fleas, but nope. It is in fact very common in third world countries like Guatemala. You can pick up fleas anywhere – if an animal gets too close to you (I haven't pet a non-PCV pet since arriving in Guatemala) or if someone with fleas gets close to you making buses and schools prime flea transferring locations.

Aside from basically fumigating my room with a highly toxic aerosol spray I was also instructed to wash everything cloth in my room. Ok fine, but the only problem is that the closest laundromat to me is an hour bus ride away on public transportation in Xela. So I loaded up a dufflebag full of clothing and bedding and lugged it down the dirt road by my house (there are no paved roads that lead to my house) to the bus stop. The ayudante – bus helper person that collects money - somehow got my heavy bag onto the top of the bus and off I went. The bus was already pretty full when I got on so I was the third person sitting on seat the made for two. This is the seat where only half of you is actually sitting on anything. As the bus continued to fill up (maximum occupancy in this country appears to be as many people as it is humanly possibly to squeeze in) people were standing in the aisles between the rows of seats which each held three people. So there I was trying to hold myself into this seat – it is actually easier with the person in the aisle holding me in with 0 personal space and a woman's purse pressed up against my face. I swear they should have asked in the Peace Corps application if we were claustrophobic, because if you are public transportation here probably resembles your worst nightmare. Luckily the bus cleared out a little halfway there and I was able to snatch a window seat with only one person sitting next to me – the ideal situation. 

The laundromats here I guess are not self service so I just dropped it all off and came back like six hours later and it was all folded and back in my duffle bag. I had them put it in plastic bags too for future flea protection. Also washing everything in my duffle bag cost 100Q ($13). The bad news is I still have AT LEAST, probably two more, duffle bags full of stuff that needs to be washed.

All in all this whole day was a struggle (it stated raining as I was looking for a buss back and didn't stop until I was back in my house), but I did get my whole bag back nice and clean. So now to hopefully prevent myself from getting fleas again I have been instructed to keep my outside clothes for the outside and inside clothes inside. So every time I walk into my room I have to take off ALL of my clothes and put them in a plastic bag or container to prevent flea spreadage and change into clothes that have not been outside yet. 

Nothing in this country is easier than it would be in the U.S.. Everything is slightly if not much harder. But hey – this is all part of the Peace Corps experience.

One highly toxic method (right) and one more natural (left)
I am currently on my third can of 'oko' and have started to buy the bigger size can

The Fair in Olintepeque, Quetzaltenango

During school vacation week I got to travel to some different towns and visit my PC friends. My favorite activity was visiting Olintepeque which is in the department (Guatemalan version of states) of Quetzaltenango (Xela for short). This cute little town is only about a 15-20 minute camioneta ride away from the city of Xela. Ferias (fairs) are a BIG DEAL in Guatemala. Almost every town has one and they last about a week. It was actually a lot like country-town fairs that I have been to in the U.S. except on a smaller scale and with more costumes, choreographed dances, and marimba music. The feria in my town is coming up in the end of August and I am so excited! Finally I will have something to do here. 

Cool cow

Flying monkeys 

Marimba band

Kendra and Farah playing foosball - Kendra won vs. me, vs. Farah,
and vs. Farah and I together

Sometimes it Just Hits Me....How Cool is it that I Live Here?!?!

There is no short supply of things that really bug me about Guatemala (the machismo culture, male chauvinism, being one of the main ones), but sometimes I take the time to look at the beautiful scenery or it just hits me that it is really just cool that I live here. I got this feeling last night when I went down for dinner and no one was there and there was no fire in the wood burning stove or food cooking on the stove top. I went out back and found my host mom in our wooden shack kneeling before two small fires making tortillas, and cooking beans and some kind of corn mixture that I think she feeds to our pigs. She has a nice smile in the first picture, but the second picture more accurately represents the lighting and captures the ambiance.

The Difference Between Speaking and Expressing Yourself

 I have a lot of free time on my hands. The school day here is only from 7:30-12:30 or 8-1 so I always have my afternoons free. This is partially why I enjoy my K'iche' class so much – something to do in the afternoons. So I read. A lot. When I have internet I sometimes like to read the NYT's or Boston Globe's world sections, but when this often isn't the case I have been reading books. I am really lucky that both of the Peace Corps offices in Guatemala have a book lending library where PCVs can take and return books. I have found a lot of good stuff in there. I have also been downloading some kindle books to my tablet when I can get connected to wifi. Anyway, my most recent read was David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. What an entertaining read! I thoroughly enjoyed it and finished it in about a day and a half (I told you I have a lot of free time). I have always thought this about my Spanish, but I thought that he put it nicely: “It was one of those times when you really notice the difference between speaking and expressing yourself.” I feel like this often. My Spanish level is continuing to improve and I have been able to work with kids and get them to successfully draw a map of their school. This is an activity that I have been doing with fifth and sixth graders in each of my schools. However I still don't feel like I can really express myself or really be me in Spanish. It's getting better, but I am still working on it, poco a poco.

Monterrico Beach Weekend

On Friday a group of 11 of us headed to Monterrico, a small little beach town on the Pacific Ocean about a two and a half hour drive from Antigua. It was HOT there and it felt good. The beach is black sand and the undertow was so intense that we couldn't really go swimming in the ocean (which was a shame because the water was warm and refreshing), but we stuck our feet in and swam in the pool. We stayed at Hotel El Delfin (Dolphin Hotel). It cost 50Q ($6.50) a night! Our beds were hard and there were only shared bathrooms, but we could walk out of our room and maybe 20 feet down the hall we were on the beach. I would definitely stay there again. They also had good food that you could eat at the beach or poolside. They also had hammocks where I think that everyone took a couple of naps.

Saturday morning we all woke up at 4:30AM to take a 5AM boat tour of the mangroves. We all piled into one wooden canoe-like boat which was paddled by a Guatemalan guide gondola style. The tour lasted two hours and only cost 50Q per person. It was so beautiful – especially seeing the sunrise over the water. It is a definite must if you travel to Monterrico!

I liked the town because it wasn't very touristy. Yes there were the boat tours and activities for tourists, but it wasn't built up or commercialized. Two full days and nights was the perfect amount of time to spend there (although I didn't want to leave at the end). What a relaxing weekend!!

Drinking coconut water

Apparently the group nap was documented

Fourth of July

Sorry I have been a little slow on my blog posting – I haven’t had access to internet in my house for a while. 

As PC volunteers we get vacation days on only two American holidays: the fourth of July and Thanksgiving. We also get Guatemalan holidays. For this fourth of July VAC  (Volunteer Advisory Council) planned a basketball tournament, soccer games, and a pizza lunch in the morning in the Santa Lucia office. They also rented out a bar in Antigua in the evening for us where we had a talent show, dinner, fireworks, and dancing. It was definitely one of the top two fourth of July celebrations that I have ever experienced (I’m not sure if anything can really top Vegas). Most volunteers dressed up in the most ridiculous red, white, and blue clothing that we could find. There was so much American pride. I did not play basketball or soccer, but I definitely ate pizza and enjoyed watching the sports. The basketball teams were organized by the departments in which we work and a staff team. Quiche (pronounced k’iche not like the food) ended up beating the staff team in a couple very close and competitive games. They are not many volunteers from Totonicpan where I live, but most of my closest friends here live in  Xela (pronounced Shey-la) and I am there a lot so I am an honorary member. Xela scored zero points in the whole tournament.

At the bar I participated in the talent show as a part of the Xela Xit Xow team. ’X’ in Mayan languages are pronounced like ’sh.’ Does our name make sense now? We did the Napoleon Dynamite dance but to the mashup of Beyonce's song Girls (Beyonce & Beastie Boys - Girls on Girls (Captain Cuts Remix and in typical xit xow fashion we did not do that much rehearsing, but 
it was entertaining to watch.

Our country director ladies and gentlemen

The Xela Xit Xow

Mark saluting the flag

K'ICHE'

I am learning a Mayan language! There are over 20 different Mayan languages and I am going to learn K'iche' which according to Wikipedia is the second most widely spoken language in Guatemala. K'iche' means "many trees" K'i means many and Che' means trees.

In my new town the majority of people are bilingual and speak both Spanish and K'iche.' Most events and activities in my town are done at least partly in K'iche'. Luckily for me most people speak Spanish too! Although after I finished introducing myself to one kindergarten class and getting blank stares the teacher began talking in K'iche'. When I asked her she told me that only two of the students really speak Spanish...that might have been useful information before I started my spiel.

I am taking classes with Rosemeri, a woman who teaches the first grade at the school in my town. I'm lucky she is so patient and supportive of all of my terrible pronunciations. The plan is to take 20 hours of class, but I enjoy her company and like having an afternoon activity so I might try and get the PC to pay for more classes.

My adorable teacher (she usually wears glasses but took them off for the picture) with my K'iche' lesson behind her

Basically I can sum up my first lesson by: Kinch'obtaj le k'iche' tzij (which is roughly pronounced keen-ch-op-tahh le k'iche' tz-ee-hh). This means I don't speak K'iche'. It is hard! I'm also kidding there is no way I can pronounce all that correctly! There are so many different throat sounds that I have never made in my life.

Words are pronounced more or less like Spanish unless there are ( ' ) or ( ¨ ). Therefore I like words with no accents or anything. Like pempem (like pen pen but with m's). This means butterfly. Unlike in many other languages the accents ( ' ) occupy their own space in the word which makes it easy to type on a computer.

When there accents over vowels they are pronounced doubly and with a stronger emphasis ~ a'= a-A!, e'=e-E!, i'=i-I!, o=o-O!, u=u-U!

In addition:
B' is pronounced like a p when you pop your lips
        Keb' = two and is pronounced kep(with a lip smacking pop  
        on the p)
K' is pronounced like k with static
Q' is the hardest! It is pronounced like you have a little air in the back of your throat and then you half swallow it - I'm still working on it.

Rosemeri is teaching me K'iche' by using Spanish so English is no longer the base of my language learning. I think this is pretty cool.