So this past week was easter break here in Guatemala, which meant there was no school (again). So my site mate, two other PCV's that live about an hour N.E. of us, and myself decided we would take an adventure into Alta Verapaz to a place called Semuc Champey. It is about 2 hours north of Coban (the capital of Alta) because about an hour outside of coban the road turns to gravel and winds down into the valley below. We took a micro that had assigned seats, but if you know anything about the micros in latin america that does not mean it will be comfortable! there were 5 of us crammed into the very back seat for the 2 hour ride, the whole time the micro is getting fuller and fuller of people and i just keep thinking to myself...how are we going to get out of here? really? well we ended up climbing out the back window! haha it was crazy!
The Hostel we stayed at was soooo cool! its called El Retiro and if you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it! (it does draw a young crown though) they put a lot of time into decorating the place and the bathrooms have all this mosaic tile and paintings all over them, even the sinks are decorated! the food there was ah-mazing! each night they do a themed buffet and after recently switching over to the veggie side of life, i was a little apprehensive of the fact that i had to pay Q45 a night (which is a lot on a pcv's salary!) but wow, there was so much delicious veggies and sides, i think i had the equivalent of a thanksgiving dinner every night!
Thursday we went to the Semuc Champey pools, which are these natural formed pools over a limestone land bridge. Because of the limestone the water in these pools are turquoise blue and are absolutely breath taking. we decided to do the hike to the top of a mountain so you can see the overview of all the pools first. The sign said it was difficult, but good lord, i think that might have been the hardest hike i have done in a while. it was straight up the mountain and it was so slippery because of all the wet leaves from the rain forest. it felt like it took forever to get to the top, but the view was so breathtakingly beautiful, the pools looked like they were glowing! i have honestly never seen anything like it! when we came back down (which also took a long time, there were a lot of steps, that were definitely made for a 6 foot man! my legs were so sore hahaha!) Natalie (the PCV that lives about an hour away from me in baja) and i found a pool with a lot of waterfalls and not many people and it was so peaceful. there was so much natural noise there, it felt really cool to be connected to it all! Everything was just so peaceful! After that we went to a rope swing, we all thought it was going to be something you held onto and jumped into the river with, but we were all wrong! it was an actual swing that you sat on and then jumped off of when it was at the height of its swing! i didn't want to pay Q10 to do it, so i had the responsibility of taking pictures and cheering people on! Everything was going great until natalie's second jump, she jumped off wrong and ended up flopping on her side. She had a hard time getting out of the river, which was really scary, and is now sporting a huge bruise that goes all the way from her shoulder to her knee! talk about extreme sports!
Friday we decided to see some of the caves in the region. from the description in a brochure and lonely planet, we would be going on a "candle lit tour, with a professionally trained tour guide". In my mind i thought we would be walking through big caverns, that had candles places strategically throughout so that one could see all the neat parts of the cave. well i thought wrong. The "candle lit" part of the tour was a thin candle that the guide lit before entering the cave. there were no flashlights, there were no other candles. we ended up on a tour with a rather large guatemalan family and we were all equally surprised to find that instead of walking along pathways, we were swimming through a river under ground. after the first slippery ladder i climb i was already thinking, this is more than i bargained for! but we pressed on and the cave was actually really neat, i wish i could have seen more of it, but it was a cool experience. well, we get to the end of the tour where you can jump off a ledge into the water. the family all wants to do it, so we wait for them, meanwhile our candles are starting to burn lower and lower. One of the women from the family starts saying that we need to keep walking to get to the exit, but our guide keeps telling her that the only exit of the cave was the one we entered through. she continued to argue with him because she wanted to see more of the caves, but there was no way that we could continue on because all of our candles were about to go out. at this point i am on the verge of a panic attack, natalie who grew up with a colombian family and is fluent in spanish is trying to take charge of the situation. finally after what seemed to be 30 min. the family finally agreed that we should turn back and get out of the cave, it was ridiculous. we made it very quickly through the cave on the way out, what seemed to be like miles, turned out to only be 30 min. it was absolutely loco and not something i plan on repeating when i return!
that night we took it easy and went to bed early. this morning we caught a ride home with the shuttle and i am safe and sound back in my site, with some sort of stomach bug....i am hoping this turns out to be nothing because the coming week is going to be a busy one! the teachers have finally ended striking so we can start working on monday! which although having a month of vacation was incredibly nice, it will also be nice to start to get to know the people we will be working with and start forming more relationships in site. Also i get to move into my room on monday so i will finallllyyy be out of this hotel! the rains officially moved in today which puts moving time on a schedule, but i am excited non the less!
well that's all for now, i think i am going to drink some more gatorade and call it a night. tune in for more crazy guatemalan adventures!
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Hello Everyone!
Another week down in site and things are continuing to become more and more familiar. I do officially have a place to live but have to wait one more week so that my new host family can put doors on the bathroom and "shower"/ bucket bath area (i say "shower" loosely because we only have running water from 6-9 am every morning). The family seems very nice, it is a young woman that is a teacher, her daughter that is around 9 years old, and her father. I am very excited to get into my room and make it my own space. It is big enough for me to have my own stove and a full size bed so I am not complaining. I am trying to find a space to start a garden, but i may be getting ahead of myself!
I wish I could say this week was super eventful, but unfortunately the strike raged on. The teachers have a big list of demands and unfortunately all of them are about money in some way, which Guatemala unfortunately doesn't have. SO the strike will officially come to an end on Monday April 25 because at this point school will not have been in session for close to a month. This is good for us because it means we can start visiting schools on the 26th and really get to work. I know I shouldn't be complaining about not having to work for the past couple of weeks, but getting out to the aldeas will help us integrate into the community much quicker as well as learn the ropes and all the things we want to accomplish in the coming weeks!
This week was interesting though, Maggie and I had a bit of a scare on the way home from Antigua monday, when we discovered that there were no longer buses running from the cabicera, Salama to our town San Miguel. Fortunately there was a taxi that agreed to drive us out there, but for a large fee. Tuesday we had another awkward experience, when Maggie's host dad invited us to coffee with some of his friends. This is fishy for many reasons. One Guatemalans don't "grab coffee" and two normally the only time guys and girls will hang out is because they are dating. the term "guy-friend" does not exist here. if you show interest in the opposite sex you are dating. which means you are engaged. there is no inbetween. haha so the whole time we were drinking our coffee, maggie and i kept exchanging looks of "oh god please let this not be what i think it is. " I think it was all in good fun, but that is something we probably will not be repeating any time soon.
On Wednesday I was invited to a church meeting where I finally met the women from the evangelical church that have lived in town for over 30 years. Both seem incredibly nice, one said her sister went to App State (small world) and that there was no way she believed I was from NC because I definitely don't have the accent! ( I wasn't sure how to feel about that but smiled and said 'yeah I get that alot') I think in the future I might be working with one of them to start up english classes as a secondary project, but again vamos a ver.
Thursday I visited my friend that lives about an 1.5 away from me. We made a delicious coconut curry lunch and watched a movie, it was an incredibly nice break from speaking spanish all the time! haha and the curry was soooo good! i can't wait to get into my room and be able to make food like that all the time! (what are leftovers for?) We met up again yesterday to go to a nice private pool which was also a nice break from men constantly making rude sounds and gestures at me. It was almost like we were back home.
Things are definitely looking up here though. I found myself relieved to see the familiar sign of bienvenidos a san miguel chicaj when we returned on Monday night and even more relieved when i woke up and realized i knew exactly where my market was and that i could go across the street and talk to the owner of the hotel and feel like i was having a real conversation again. I am constantly blown away by the niceness of people here, it is definitely starting to out weigh the bad stuff!
the next couple of weeks are going to fly by! this week because there is no school (again) we are going to semuc champey. if you have a guidebook i highly suggest looking this place up. to everyone else it is a river that runs over a natural land bridge and has made these emerald green pools because the land bridge is made of limestone. The guatemalan's claim it to be the 8th natural wonder of the world, my guide book author says it is still one of the most beautiful places he has been throughout the world! So i am very very excited to say the least! the following week work starts and then we have our welcome to the verapaz's party which will be nice to finally meet all the volunteers living in the region! (there are not a lot....i think there might be 16-20 out of the 260 in Guate)
I hope everyone is doing well and i think about you all often! thank you for all your support during this rocky first months, i know that the roller coaster ride is nowhere near over, but its nice to just be coasting for right now!
Hasta proxima vez!
Kata
Another week down in site and things are continuing to become more and more familiar. I do officially have a place to live but have to wait one more week so that my new host family can put doors on the bathroom and "shower"/ bucket bath area (i say "shower" loosely because we only have running water from 6-9 am every morning). The family seems very nice, it is a young woman that is a teacher, her daughter that is around 9 years old, and her father. I am very excited to get into my room and make it my own space. It is big enough for me to have my own stove and a full size bed so I am not complaining. I am trying to find a space to start a garden, but i may be getting ahead of myself!
I wish I could say this week was super eventful, but unfortunately the strike raged on. The teachers have a big list of demands and unfortunately all of them are about money in some way, which Guatemala unfortunately doesn't have. SO the strike will officially come to an end on Monday April 25 because at this point school will not have been in session for close to a month. This is good for us because it means we can start visiting schools on the 26th and really get to work. I know I shouldn't be complaining about not having to work for the past couple of weeks, but getting out to the aldeas will help us integrate into the community much quicker as well as learn the ropes and all the things we want to accomplish in the coming weeks!
This week was interesting though, Maggie and I had a bit of a scare on the way home from Antigua monday, when we discovered that there were no longer buses running from the cabicera, Salama to our town San Miguel. Fortunately there was a taxi that agreed to drive us out there, but for a large fee. Tuesday we had another awkward experience, when Maggie's host dad invited us to coffee with some of his friends. This is fishy for many reasons. One Guatemalans don't "grab coffee" and two normally the only time guys and girls will hang out is because they are dating. the term "guy-friend" does not exist here. if you show interest in the opposite sex you are dating. which means you are engaged. there is no inbetween. haha so the whole time we were drinking our coffee, maggie and i kept exchanging looks of "oh god please let this not be what i think it is. " I think it was all in good fun, but that is something we probably will not be repeating any time soon.
On Wednesday I was invited to a church meeting where I finally met the women from the evangelical church that have lived in town for over 30 years. Both seem incredibly nice, one said her sister went to App State (small world) and that there was no way she believed I was from NC because I definitely don't have the accent! ( I wasn't sure how to feel about that but smiled and said 'yeah I get that alot') I think in the future I might be working with one of them to start up english classes as a secondary project, but again vamos a ver.
Thursday I visited my friend that lives about an 1.5 away from me. We made a delicious coconut curry lunch and watched a movie, it was an incredibly nice break from speaking spanish all the time! haha and the curry was soooo good! i can't wait to get into my room and be able to make food like that all the time! (what are leftovers for?) We met up again yesterday to go to a nice private pool which was also a nice break from men constantly making rude sounds and gestures at me. It was almost like we were back home.
Things are definitely looking up here though. I found myself relieved to see the familiar sign of bienvenidos a san miguel chicaj when we returned on Monday night and even more relieved when i woke up and realized i knew exactly where my market was and that i could go across the street and talk to the owner of the hotel and feel like i was having a real conversation again. I am constantly blown away by the niceness of people here, it is definitely starting to out weigh the bad stuff!
the next couple of weeks are going to fly by! this week because there is no school (again) we are going to semuc champey. if you have a guidebook i highly suggest looking this place up. to everyone else it is a river that runs over a natural land bridge and has made these emerald green pools because the land bridge is made of limestone. The guatemalan's claim it to be the 8th natural wonder of the world, my guide book author says it is still one of the most beautiful places he has been throughout the world! So i am very very excited to say the least! the following week work starts and then we have our welcome to the verapaz's party which will be nice to finally meet all the volunteers living in the region! (there are not a lot....i think there might be 16-20 out of the 260 in Guate)
I hope everyone is doing well and i think about you all often! thank you for all your support during this rocky first months, i know that the roller coaster ride is nowhere near over, but its nice to just be coasting for right now!
Hasta proxima vez!
Kata
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The journey continues.....
Week two in site was a little bit more productive than the previous week. The teachers have gone on strike nationwide which makes things a bit tricky when trying to visit schools and introduce ourselves because there is no school, but we did manage to get to one of our 26 schools monday before everything shut down. Which was awesome. the teachers were super into the project and really excited to get started. It gives these really small school pride to reach this goal. Of course we will definitely run into problems in the future but for now it was nice to get going!
The housing search has not given me much hope, but peace corps is going to come look at a room in a house on monday and see if it is acceptable for me to move into. the only problem is that in three months i am going to have to go through this process again, but i think i am moving into their living room right now and they don't want me to be there for more than three months. But vamos a ver. hopefully something else will open up! but i am very excited to be moving in with a family and getting out of the hotel. its incredibly lonely and i am excited to be able to start cooking and nesting! it will definitely make this week go by much much faster if i can focus on making my living situation better! but otherwise i am really enjoying being in Baja VeraPaz. We made it into antigua this weekend to meet up with some friends and have had a great time sitting at the top of our hostel at the terrace catching up about sites and making plans to come and visit each other. its fascinating to me that no one here will have the same peace corps experience. One of my friends doing the sustainable eco-tourism project is living in a remote aldea two hours from the closest town and she said the first week she woke up to it snowing because she is so high in altitude! they only take bucket baths once a week, but in a sauna-like building! because it is so cold there!! which is the exact opposite of my site....mid 90s everyday, palm trees, tropical fruit.....it definitely made me thankful! I never thought i would say this but.....things are so much easier for me!
my days in site are spent playing with my site-mate's puppy, meeting the town officials, talking with my site mate's host family and trying to stay cool! Maggie (my site mate) has a kiddie pool in her back yard so we spend most of our afternoons in it with her host sister splashing around! it defintiely makes things cooler! haha. we did venture to the next site over and visit with some of our friends, which was a nice because their town has these natural pools that is in a park like area! it was really funny because they have all the statues of boys peeing.....which is weird because the men here frequently urinate in public! haha
well that's about all that is going on right now....more to come on my new room and my new host-family!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Home sweet home
Well i have been in site for a week now and i have to say things are definitely looking up. I am still currently living in the hotel, but Maggie and I have made a lot of effort to get to know the people in our town and will continue to do so this coming week! Although i am still currently in the search for housing, i am keeping in good spirits that something will turn up!
Maggie and I have also spent a lot of the week exploring the area around us! and it varies greatly city to city! we live in what is called a "Tropical desert" it is common here for there to be no water for half the year and the other half of the year it feels like a rainforest. very interesting to see palm trees and tropical fruit right next to a cactus the size of a house! haha
the next town over is Salama, the capital of this department (baja verapaz) and it is like most cabiceras, very busy with the bussle of people coming to and going. this is the hub for us for food that you can't find in a mercado, and for things that we will need for our housing situation (when we find it!) its is equally hot, but with more people and definitely is not as tranquilo as San Miguel.
a little further east you start to climb the mountains again and are in a cloud, rain forest. it is about 30 degrees cooler and has beautiful green scenery!
Maggie and I are discovering that communication here can be very funny at times. We wanted to buy a huge jug of SalvaVidas water, only to be confused by the fact that if we buy a new one it will be 3 times more expensive than if we return a used one for a new. in order for us to explain that we do have one (a old used bottle), we just need to return to maggie's host family and get it was only met by blank stares and us cracking up!
The teachers are planning on going on strike for the next couple of weeks, which means that we won't be able to start work, which will definitely make things interesting! but next weekend i have to return to the office for some medical supplies, so that will most definitely get us through this week!
well i can't wait to tell you more about our adventures! until next time!
Kata
Maggie and I have also spent a lot of the week exploring the area around us! and it varies greatly city to city! we live in what is called a "Tropical desert" it is common here for there to be no water for half the year and the other half of the year it feels like a rainforest. very interesting to see palm trees and tropical fruit right next to a cactus the size of a house! haha
the next town over is Salama, the capital of this department (baja verapaz) and it is like most cabiceras, very busy with the bussle of people coming to and going. this is the hub for us for food that you can't find in a mercado, and for things that we will need for our housing situation (when we find it!) its is equally hot, but with more people and definitely is not as tranquilo as San Miguel.
a little further east you start to climb the mountains again and are in a cloud, rain forest. it is about 30 degrees cooler and has beautiful green scenery!
Maggie and I are discovering that communication here can be very funny at times. We wanted to buy a huge jug of SalvaVidas water, only to be confused by the fact that if we buy a new one it will be 3 times more expensive than if we return a used one for a new. in order for us to explain that we do have one (a old used bottle), we just need to return to maggie's host family and get it was only met by blank stares and us cracking up!
The teachers are planning on going on strike for the next couple of weeks, which means that we won't be able to start work, which will definitely make things interesting! but next weekend i have to return to the office for some medical supplies, so that will most definitely get us through this week!
well i can't wait to tell you more about our adventures! until next time!
Kata
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)