Always an Adventure

Well, I will try and give the sweetned, condensed version of what we have been doing, because I could ramble on for ages, but I don't have that much internet time and I don't think you want to live my life minute by minute. On Wednesday, we all made a trek over to Solola to buy seeds and notebooks for our projects. In order to get there, you take the boat from San Pedro to Pana and then take a bus up the hill to Solola from Pana. The boat ride is really pretty, because you go all the way accross the lake and there's mountains and volcanoes surrounding the lake, creating gorgeous scenary. We spent the whole morning walking around Solola comparing prices at the different stores that sell seeds. Unfortunately, there are no heirloom seeds to be found in Guatemala (seeds the reproduce year after year), which is what we had initally hoped for-and it's really hard to get seeds through customs. So, we ended up just having to get seeds that will only last for year...not super sustainable, but at least it gives families an idea of how to create a box. We ended up buying different seeds at different stores, because they some stores had better prices on some, and some on others. We got 10 different kinds of vegetables plus cilantro which apprently acts as natural insect repelant for the plants. We were also able to get a bunch of notebooks and pens for a writing workshop Brionne is doing with older girls in the towns.
It was a successful day because we got all our supplies, but fairly uneventful otherwise. We learned something interesting about the government though-apparently in 3 of the districs in Guatemala (kind of like counties in the US), there is a regular, political mayor, like what we would think of, and there's also a "cultural" mayor-someone who is of Mayan descent and basically is the voice of the indingenous people. Although they don't have very much "real" power, they can be influential and they are the ones who pass along the concerns of the people to the regular government. I don't completely understand how it all works, but I thought it was interesting (and a bit sad that only 3 of the districts have a cultural mayor).
That night we conted out enough seeds for 5 families (100 seeds of each kind in a baggy). Some of them aren't too bad to count, others are teeny tiny and really difficult. We still have a bunch more to sort out.
The next two days, Thursday and Friday, we headed up to the mountains to work with families. On Thursday, we went to a community called Palestina, and we planted gardens with 5 families. Palestina is fairly spread out, so we had to walk a good distance between each of the houses. There was one house especially that it seemed like we were never going to get to. Lorenzo made us all bring sticks, because apparently the family has a mean dog. All the families were great on Thursday, they all had their plots ready to go and were really nice and receptive and eager to help us/have us help them. Basically to make the gardens you divide up the earth into 12inX12in little boxes and in each box you can plant a different vegetable a fairly high density. For example with carrots you can plant 16 in one box, with cucumber, because it's a more bushy plant, only one per box. But it's still is a lot of vegetables for a small space. One of the houses we visited already had a huge radish garden and a greenhouse (although he said he didn't have enough money to buy seeds for his gardens). But, his radishes were already ripe so he picked some for us to try. I don't know if I ever eaten a fresh radish like that...it was pretty good. A little bit spicy and really crunchy and fresh.
At the very end of the day we went to the next community to remind them we would be coming in the morning so they could get their plots ready. At one of the houses, they gave us coffe...but it tasted like it had some sort of spice in it, it was really interesting. I was a little afraid it was going to make me sick, but so far so good.
The next day, we went up to another community nearby Palestina (I think it was called Panyevar...but I'm sure I'm butchering the spelling horribly). We were able to visit 7 families because we split up and because the houses were closer together. We got the kids more involved this time (our goal is for the gardens to be the more of a responsability for kids and mothers because the fathers are generally off working). Once we asked the kids to help, they were super into it. They would "fight" over who got to plant the seeds..so we'd try to have some sort of order to make sure someone wasn't getting more than someone else. We tried to explain what we were doing as we went along, so hopefully they at least got the general jist of it. In any case, it was great to get them involved and see them excited about the project.
Brionne and I also held her first writing workshop. Her goal is to empower women and give them a voice in their community, and although our first group was a little giggly, they came up with some great things. The first family we visited had a 14 year old girl, so she went out and recruited some of her friends for our workshop...and as it went on we attracted more and more onlookers. The girls were 14...a very giggly age. We had the workshop on the front porch of the first girls house (I feel bad I can't remember anyones name)-first we had everyone go around and introduce themselves and say 3 words to describe how they were feeling (ie happy, nervous, hot, etc) and then we explained about the workshop. Basically, we want to give them journal and have that be a place where they can feel free to express themselves. Then, we had them break into groups and talk about whether or not they had ever kept a journal before and what the thought about keeping a journal. Then we came back together as a group and wrote down 5-10 things that described our world (ie about family, community, etc). Then, we them write a short story describing them and their life...we said it could be about them personally, their families, their community, anything really. Then we had them come back and share part of their story. I think all of them talked about their families and how theywere happy with their families and a few of them talked about how they thought school was really important and that they tried to do well in school so they could progress their lives. All in all it was very powerful and interesting, I think it would be interesting to do a similar exercise with girls of the same age in the US and see what they came up with.
Well, now we're on our big trip, but I'm about to run out of internet time...so I'll update about that later!

Planning the month

Today we had our first meeting with Ami San Lucas. We met up at nine at la Iglesia Principal (the big Catholic church in the middle of town) to walk over, but then Lorenzo (the main person who we work with at Ami) called and said he wouldn't be ready until 10...running on Guatemala time as usual. So we walked down to a coffee shop because I hadn't gotten coffee yet that morning, and I knew I would have a terrible headache if I didn't get some. Then we walked over to San Juan, which is the neighboring town and about a 30 minute walk away. We got there a few minutes before 10, and of course our meeting with everyone didn't start until about 10:30. But, we were able to roughly plan out what we're going to do for the month which was nice. We decided that instead of making garden boxes in schools (our original plan) we're going to make with families. We're hoping we can reach at least 75 families in I think 12 different communities while we're here. We still have to figure out where to get filters from, a problem we're currently working on. Mark is trying to get in contact with Potters for Peace in Honduras and Israel (the doctor at Ami) is trying to get in touch with some of his friends in Nicaragua. Hopefully we'll be able to get some for relatively inexpensive. After planning out our month, we returned to San Pedro for lunch. Lunch is the big meal here, which is something I'm still getting used to. But, it is always a lot of food, which means I am fuller once dinner rolls around. My biggest problem is that I get hungry between breakfast and lunch, because we usually eat breakfast around 8 or earlier and then don't have lunch until 1 or 2, because we're out doing stuff until then. Anyways, after lunch I had Spanish lessons. I was a little unsure about them at first, but I think it's going to be a lot of help now. It's one on one which basically means I can practice whatever I want basically--so I'm reviewing all those nasty grammar tenses that I've been ignoring since the last time I took a Spanish grammar class. Anyways, we don't start working in communities until Thursday, until then we have to prepare what we're going to say and get what supplies we can.

Arrival San Pedro la Laguna

We made the drive today from Guatemala City to San Pedro la Laguna. We spent last night at la casa de las Hermanas (aka a house run by nuns aka a convent)--it's this really nice house in Guatemala City. It has a huge backyard with lots of plants and a swimming pool. Thank goodness, the hermanas let me leave my huge suitcase with them so I didn't have to drag it all the way to San Pedro and up the hills (it's full of all my winter clothes for Chile). We had our own van (because there are enough of us to fill up a van) to take us to San Pedro. We even had a police escort! Partly because Mark's wife was nervous about traveling with their boys (who are really young) through Guatemala and partly because they were going to carry filters we were supposed to pick up in Antigua for us. However, the meeting in Antigua is another story. There's a factory in Antigua that makes ceramic filters--the kind we were going to bring to give to some families in some of the communities we were going to work in. Mark had spoken with the director had made a deal with them to get them for cheaper than usual--$25 each (they're usually $42). We were supposed to meet them at the factory today and pick them up. But, they called us at the last minute and told us they weren't going to be there today--and that they wouldn't sell us the filters for $25, they'd only sell them for $35. So, now we have to troubleshoot and figure out what we're going to do. After that little blip, we continued on our way. We stopped at none other the Pollo Campero (basically Guatemala's version of KFC) for lunch. Then we continued on to San Pedro; the rest of the drive was uneventful. We got to San Pedro around 3, went to the school and met with our host families. I really like my host family this year. Both my mom and dad are teachers--my mom is a teacher in San Pedro and my dad is a teacher in Santa Cruz which is across the lake. My little sister is 13 and she goes to school in San Pedro and my little brother is 5 and he also goes to school here. My brother is really funny, he's a little chatter box. We played connect four before dinner--except he has very interesting rules--so he won every time of course. My mom made what she called tortas which was basically kind of like a pancake with ham, sausage, tomatoes and onion. It was pretty good. Well, so far everything is going pretty well--minus the little mishap with the filters.

In the Airport

Well, I'm trying to successfully start a blog. Right now, my year abroad is just beginning. I'm sitting in San Francisco Airport and waiting for my plane to Guatemala. Today I spent the whole day in San Francisco with my family. We got my visa for Chile first, then ate lunch at the Cheescake Factory, then wandered around Union Square. Then we headed over to Fisherman's Wharf and hung out there for a while. Got some clam chowder and then Ghiradelli sundaes...yummy. Now, I just want to get to Guatemala. I'm tired because my life the last week has consisted of moving and packing and repacking, and now I'm ready to just be somewhere and not have to worry about packing. So, I'll try to be good about updating, but until next time.