Guatemala: Land of Tall Mountains and Short People

Hola a todos!

It has been another busy week here in Xela. Monday was a tour of an indigenous community nearby, Tuesday night was a documentary about the armed conflict, Wednesday was more salsa dancing, Thursday was a cooking class, Friday was a trip to one of the biggest markets in Guatemala and it was also the beginning of our first excursion as a group to Lake Atitlan.

San Andres Xecul was the indigenous town that we went to on Monday. It was about a 30 minute bus ride, and as per the norm down here, we did not have enough seats so we had to do different arrangements to get us all there together. We visited some churches there that were painted in some spectacular colors and designs. We were also able to see a Mayan ceremony, which we believe was some sort of memorial service.

We were able to watch a documentary at our school (Celas Maya) on Tuesday night, which was about the armed conflict in Guatemala from the indigenous perspective. It was very interesting but the images were graphic. However I think it is important to have videos like that which show the repression that the indigenous and mestizo population went through during the conflict in order to avoid future similar situations.

Another fun filled night of salsa dancing! One of my friends got to dance with one of the instructors, and I was so jealous! So this is my goal for this coming week. However, I feel like I learn a few new things or I learn how to time things out better with my dancing skills.

On Thursday, we made relleñitos de frijoles, which is basically a dough made of mashed up plantains filled with beans which had sugar added to them. It was a dessert, and it was very delicious. We added a little cream and sugar to the top of them so it was pretty tasty. We mashed the plantains and then filled them with about a spoonful of beans and formed somewhat of a little pie, except for it was round. Then they were fried in oil and ready to eat!

Friday was a very busy day. We left to go to San Francisco de Alto market, which is one of the biggest in Guate. We walked 30 minutes to get to this rotunda where 3 large busses honked and yelled at us to ride with them. We finally got on one, and then made about 20 stops along the way to pick up individuals. By the time we got there, we had 3 people to a regular bus seat, many people in the aisle and people squeezing in to sell candies, food or other objects. An hour of that and we got to the market. At the market, there were so many things for sale. Cows, dogs, pigs, sheep, cats, chickens, turkeys, ducks.. all on nice little ropes being pulled around when they were paid for. In another part of the market, they sold fresh meat on sticks that was just hanging in front of our faces, interesting smell. Then we went into the clothing section where a great deal of indigenous clothing was sold. I bought a purse for Q75 and it is beautiful. We left on the same kind of bus that we came from, but on the positive side we didn’t have to go back to class.

That was because it was time for our excursion! We left at 2:30 for Lake Atitlan, which was a little over a 2 hour bus ride, so not bad at all. When we arrived at the lake, we stopped at a scenic overview to take pictures and buy some souvenirs. Then we arrived at the hotel. Which was like a resort. We had 3 people to a room, with 3 beds, and hot showers with pressure. It was fantastic. The first night we went out to eat at a place where we waited about 45 minutes for drinks and over 2 hours for our food, and then people went to get more food after because they weren’t full. So kind of a fail on the food situation. That night, we stayed at the resort and just hung out as a group and chatted, which was pretty fun.

On Saturday morning, we took a boat tour to three towns around Lake Atitlan like San Pedro, San Marino and Santiago. In San Pedro, my friend Ruari and I got separated from the group while we were taking pictures and ended up missing people from our group jumping into the lake. We met back up with them and then went onto see a few churches and other places around town. Then we came back for lunch at the hotel, which was delicious but still not a lot. After lunch, we took a short siesta and then went to a natural reserve for ZIPLINING! It was so amazing. We were a couple of hundred meters up in the trees and on every line we had a fantastic view of the Lake Atitlan. The longest one was for 40 seconds and the shortest was for 8 seconds. There were 8 different paths that we took so it was really great. It also wiped me out of cash because we weren’t aware that we could do that, so I ended up splitting supper with Grace and we stayed in to chat again and we also walked down to the lake later to see the lights.

On Sunday, we climbed La Nariz del Indio. It was 2000 m high and it was mostly  rocks and steps, so it was difficult for the leg muscles but it was a great view again. On the walk down, I had a little difficulty walking and fell twice. I have some proud battle wounds to show! One of them is a 12 inch mark on my arm that looks really bad but actually doesn’t hurt. I am hoping they both heal up. The trip in total took a little more than 4 hours and then we took a boat ride back to our hotel. After having a little misunderstanding, all 24 of us were only able to shower in 2 different rooms after the coordinators moved all of stuff to these two rooms. It gave people some high tempers. I also experienced my first street food because it is cheaper than a restaurant, and I had this chicken taco with some other girls. It was fresh chicken and onions, but it tasted amazing. They also have popsicles for Q1 at the Sarita ice cream shop, so they are incredible (lime is my favorite). We rode the bus back and returned to Xela around 5:30.

No excursion this weekend, but the crew is thinking about going down to La Playa (the beach) through Celas Maya which should be pretty fun. We will also be returning to Lake Atitlan we decided. I was really surprised by the number of individuals that spoke English to try and sell their objects. To anyone that cannot speak Spanish, these native sellers will steal your money. For those of us that barter, things go down about 50%.

Class this week went well again, I am slowly working through tenses, verbs, conjugations, prepositions and fun stuff like that. I am still really enjoying my family, however I feel bad on the days that I am so busy that I leave at 2 and then don’t get home until 7, and then leave again that night for another activity! Highlights from the food have been some good chicken dishes, fried cauliflower, great broccoli and carrots, some really tasty soups, and of course, lots of foods that I don’t know the name of them but I try to taste everything that has been on my plate, and thus far I have only not liked one thing (chicken livers… what a surprise those were).

As classes start for students back at CSBSJU, I hope you have a good first day of class! I’ve only been there for 2 weeks already, so don’t worry about me. Have a good week and I’ll update again next week!

Abrazos-Sarita

To explain a bit, the first picture is fromSan Andres Xecul, the cool church we visited. The other pictures are around Lake Atitln this weekend!

GUATE!

I can’t believe I have already been in Xela for a week… although it seems as though I’ve been here for quite a long time. But it really has only been a week since I said my goodbyes! This week has been full of adventures. Main events include soccer, salsa dancing with my family and with the group, a wine and cheese party, a family birthday party, a professional soccer game and climbing a mountain to see one of the wonders of Latin America.

•       Soccer: We went to an artificial turf semi indoor place to play soccer for an hour… about 6 injuries later including one tough blow to the head to my “aunt” here, my friend Grace, we left. It was very fun because some guatemaltecos were watching us and we had two native players. They were also on our team. Our team won! However I sat out with Grace when she got hit and we noticed that all of a sudden our team scored about 4 goals in a short time period, which made us question our importance! But it was a great time.
•       Salsa dancing with the group on Wednesday- Our university, Celas Maya, has arranged for us to have one hour of free salsa dancing lessons every week. This was an amazing time with the whole group. We danced all together to the salsa, they played some American music and then we all kind of split up later in the night to do some more dancing. It was so great and I am really looking forward to it this week.
•       Salsa dancing with my family- I ended up going out to this little salsa dancing bar on Thursday night with my host mom, Maria Elena, Gustavo, my host dad, and his brother, Julio who is from Guatemala City. I learned some steps from them and it turns out that Maria Elena and Gustavo go dancing quite a bit together, which I thought was very cool.
•       Wine and cheese party on Friday is a weekly tradition at Celas Maya because they have students graduating weekly. Well, there were no graduates there this week that stayed around so it was just us students from CSB/SJU. Ariel and I talked to some teachers from Celas which was fun and good practice because these ladies didn’t speak any English at all, whereas mine speaks a little.
•       Birthday party- I put up pictures on Facebook, but this party was absolutely crazy. There were 150 people invited, and I think about 90 people showed up, so quite a bit of family. It was a Toy Story theme as can be seen in the pictures, and the little boy in the Woody costume was the birthday boy. The payment for the party organizer, all of the food, music and entertainer was 10,000Q which translates to over $1,000 for a 1 YEAR OLD’S BIRTHDAY PARTY!!! They are pretty important in the society though. Grace, who is staying with my mom’s mom, was also there, and we got to break open the second piñata which was pretty fun. My host mom spun me about 10 times! And Grace 0. She gets all the luck. It was a good day.
•       Xela soccer game- About 20 of us went to a soccer game on Saturday night. It was basically a time to just chat and it was around $4 to get in.. and the jerseys outside are around $6 so it’s ridiculous. Xela won this exhibition game. The most entertaining part of the game was when we were walking in and we were pointed to a hole in the fence where we were supposed to enter. Most of us went home right after this in preparation for our big hike on Sunday.
•       La Laguna Chicabal- One of the wonders of Latin America, and is known as one of the most beautiful places that some elders in Guatemala have ever seen. However, it is a tough climb. I was so glad to have my inhaler because I needed 4 puffs to get there and back and it was definitely a struggle. Really good exercise though, and my body is definitely going to hurt on Monday. Such is life. Again, more pictures on Facebook of this, but just for a little background information. La Laguna is a sacred place of the Mayans and individuals aren’t able to touch the water or it is really disrespectful. We got to look at it from high above, and also got a great view of the surrounding volcanoes, and then climbed down a few hundred steps to get to the beach of the lake where we ate breakfast/lunch (at 9:45) and then walked around the lake. After that, we climbed back up the mountain, again really difficult, and then returned back to our lovely town of Xela.

I have still had really good luck with the food that I am having. Not that I am picky at all about the food that I eat so really it has to be pretty terrible for me to not try. I am also getting to know my host family better, and I really like them. They are extremely nice and also let me have my independence. I enjoy watching telenovelas with my host mom and I have some good chats with my host dad. Every day, my speaking and understanding gets better. I can usually understand the things they are saying on the first time as of late, which is really nice because if I wasn’t, I would be really frustrated. My teacher at Celas Maya is fantastic. She seems to think I am really funny, which I enjoy.  Our group has also been getting along really great thus far. We females are SO lucky to have 12 guys here, and guys that are willing to pick us up in the morning, walk us home in the afternoon and night, and also when they don’t live near us. It is really great of them to do that to make us feel safer.

I have also taken on the name of Sarita, by both of my parents and other members of my family. The use of –ita is a term of endearment, so it is really special. Also, my teacher at school calls me that now, so I have a good relationship with her as well. Sarita is also the name of an ice cream seller and a chain of restaurants. Pretty cool.

This week, we start our environmental science class with our director, Tania, who is really opening up. If you look at her, she is a serious lady, but she has a funny side as well, which I appreciate. I am also starting to volunteer this week. We have a required service time of 40 hours, and I will be spending my time at a women and children’s shelter. I am crossing my fingers that it goes well!

I know that southern Minnesota received quite the snow storm last week, and I just wanted to let you know that I am struggling with sun burn down here… but no snow! J However, there was frost this morning on the ground in the mountains, but it melts pretty fast.

Well, I hope that everyone is taking care in the Minnesota winter and keep me and my group in your thoughts as we continue our studying and traveling down here! I miss you all!

Abrazos- Sarita

Update from Xela!

Hola a todos!

So for a more in depth overview of what’s going on down in Guate so far. I am in Xela, and it is about a 4 ½ hour bus ride from the capital, Guatemala City. I was actually expecting worse road conditions than what we saw. It was crazy to see corn planted on hills that were almost 45 degree angles on the side of the roads however.. I learned today that all of their crops are cultivated by hand, corn can be planted twice a year and pesticides are only used on coffee plantations in areas where the climate is warm all year long. One thing that really surprised me also was the number of cars driving around the main highway and also around Xela. Unfortunately this means a lot of air pollution as the cars are old and shoot out black smoke into the air. Also, gas is Q28.99. So a little higher than us as 1 US dollar is about 8 Q. It was sad to see large families walking along the sides of the roads as we were traveling through the night… I can only imagine how frightening that is.

We arrived in Xela on Saturday around 8:30 at night and my host mom was not able to come and pick me up. I actually ended up staying with another host family that is the mother of my mother where another girl from our trip is staying. So it was nice to not be alone, but it was not the ideal way to start the trip. Once I arrived at my house, I was really surprised at how nice it is! The car is parked literally inside the house with no separation between that and the dining room and then there is the kitchen, living room and my host parents’ room. There is a garden outside and then upstairs in the garden, is my room with my own bathroom. Very nice and very lucky.

The food has been pretty good so far. Lots of beans (at every meal) and I am trying all different types of fruits and vegetables that I usually can’t pronounce on my first attempt. My host parents are intrigued by my water bottle with a straw in it (Pajilla is the word for straw, learned that today as well) and I am starting to understand more of what they are saying… that or they are speaking slower on my account. I have also met a great deal of their family. Which is huge, by the way. 4 daughters of Maria Elena (my mom) and she has 4 other siblings of which I have met a few. The little kids are adorable though.

My first day of classes went well today. I just sat and talked to my professor for 4 ½ hours and we have a 30 minute break to eat some delicious bread. I am doing a bunch of reviewing, which is nice because I am a little rusty on the stuff we learned long ago in high school! Since the first day, classes have also been going well. I did more verbs but now I am learning about the Guatemalan conflict against the indigenous people so that was really interesting.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go this natural sauna.. and the hike was 45 tough minutes with lots of incline and the first and fourth pictures show this. It was amazing, but really really hot inside. Tonight we are learning some basic salsa steps so I am really excited about that.

The second picture is of our language university, Celas Maya.. which has an outdoor area where we actually have lessons. It is pretty amazing. The third picture is a view from my room. It's a rough life but someone has to live it :) Just a weather update.. it gets up into 65 degrees with some intense sun every afternoon, however this morning I could see my breath. Rough!

More later! Abrazos!

Sarah

I Made It!!

Good news, I arrived in Xela safely on Saturday!

So far I am really enjoying my family, the food and the mountains in Guatemala!

My host family is so nice and my room is wonderful (I also have my own bathroom!)

More updates later but my computer is about to die and I am off to buy a cell phone and exchange some money so I can start really look at the wonderful crafts the Guatemalan women make!

PS It's about 70 degrees here! It's wonderful :)

Abrazos!