In a van down by the river

So i went to a motivational talk on Tuesday with kids from the office. A traveling salesman from a company that sells motivational materials to businesses came to Ipala, and ADISO was invited to have their own private 2 hour session with him. It was actually pretty good. He was talking about telling friends and family how much they mean to you, having goals, and not puting things off. Who could argue with that? The best part was when he would ask somebody for a definition for a word and nobody would know the word. (reminder, i´m the oldest person in the office and the only college graduate.) For example, one of the the words was procrastination, which i didn´t recognize in spanish until he started giving us the definition. Another word sounded something like ¨sinergía¨, which again, no one was able to give a definition for. Sinergía, hhmm that sounds an awful lot like . . . you guessed in, synergy. Unfortunatley synergy isn´t in any of my spanish english dictionaries so i could be wrong about the translation. But he definatley said synergy. As soon as i realized what he was saying, i looked around the room for a sympathizer, but of course was unable to find one. No matter, i´m taking it international. Then the speaker tried to sell us a set of motivational books for Q2500 (that´s about how much i make in a month). He was going to throw in a dictionary, a bible, a microwave and a dvd for free. But we declined. He didn´t seem upset at all; I think he liked us.

Yesterday i climbed the volcano with the gang from the office for a going way lunch for nidia and to present the new director to the park guards who work in the areá protegida. I had a lot of fun. Except for the waking up at 5 am part. I hadn´t climbed the volcano since Easter Week. i finally got to see the finished results of a project we completed a few months ago. It included rest points along the trail (which have already been graffitied), an information booth (which is empty and locked), and a dock (which is now submerged under water because of rising water levels due to the rainy season.) We decided to take the beat up row boat out for a spin. We crossed the laguna and it took us awhile. Edwin and Carlos (my new counterpart) were in back and this cuban guy from World Vision – a christian charity - and i were in front. Until Luis told me he wanted to tap in because he´d never rowed before. And it showed. The Cuban guy was the only one with boating experience. Everyone else was completely oblivious to what was going on. When we go to the middle of the laguna on the way back, we decided to jump in the water. It was a lot of fun. Even Luis jumped in, with the life preserver because he doesn´t know how to swim. Edwin had to pull me back into the boat because i wasn´t strong enough to lift myself up. After he had taken off his shirt while we were rowing, he had asked me if i liked his muscles. If they are strong enough to haul my ass back into the boat, i like them just fine.

Today i´m going to the boys´ school for the last time. I was supposed to go on Wednesday but classes were canceled for some reason. And some teachers didn´t show up on Tuesday because of some meeting being put on by World Vision. So i have 4 classrooms to go to this afternoon, and at least 2 of them are planning something special for me. i´m really excited to see what it is. I bet there is food involved.

I am flying to seattle on Friday, october 7, getting at 5 pm or so. I´ll be spending the weekend in seattle and then heading to yakima Sunday or Monday. I´m flying to st louis on Sunday the 16 and head back to guate Saturday the 22^nd. Call me, visit me, be in touch. i´m so excited for chik nugs!

let´s go fly a kite, up to the highest heights . . .

So it´s kite flying time here in guatemala. I´ve heard a few varying opinions but from what i can gather the official kite flying season lasts from 15 sept (independence day) until 1 november (all saints´ day). On november 1st, in a couple towns in guate, there are big kite festivals where people bust out with huge kites, made from various materials and fly them in in honor of loved ones who´ve passed away. i really want to go check out the festival this year. So i was walking down the street on Friday, and i saw some of my students gathered in the street watching one kid fly his kite. We started to talk and he asked me if i wanted to give it a whirl, so i did and it was a lot of fun. And it seemed the whole town walked by and smiled at seeing me fly this kite with my patojos. My boys asked me if we fly kites in the u.s. and i said yes, but i always bought mine; i´ve never made my own. Then somehow it was decided that i would come by on Sunday around 10, for a kite-making lesson. So Sunday rolls around and i stop by the tiendita where 3 brothers/students of mine live, and there were 3 other students from my favorite 6th grade class there too. We went to the mercado to buy the sticks and then to my friend´s librería to buy papel chino or tissue paper. After that we headed back to the boys´ house to get to started. I didn´t really help all that much in the actual making of my kite, but i stood by and watched as chepe worked his magic. Now i shoud tell you about chepe. He´s in my favorite classroom and it became pretty obvious to be early in the school year that he´s got a little bit of a crush on me. (Lindy, you know which boy i´m talking about). So chepe did a superb job with my kite, i mean i was acutally pretty impressed with the engenuity of all the boys. But my kite was of course the biggest, with the longest colas (streamers), and chepe even aulas (wings) on the sides. It was like the cadilac of kites. But the the piece de resistance was the corazoncito (heart) he cut out of a head and shoulders box to put in the center. Another student cut out an ¨L¨ to paste on as well and we were ready to go. It´s kind of hard to find a good place to fly kites because the steets are really narrow and busy, and there are tons of power lines. We headed to the soccer field but it was occupied so we walked down the road a bit to an open space. At first my kite wasn´t doing so well. I think it was my fault; i´m kind of out of practice and i can´t say i spent a whole lot of time flying kites when i was younger. My kite kept taking nose dives and chepe would go running after it and bring it back to me to start over. He decided it need more weight and tied a piece of cardboard to it. I let him start it up this time and he had a lot more luck. Then he handed it over to me and i got the hang of it with the kid´s adice ¨Dele más yilo! Jale!¨ Then chepe dedided we should play a game. I can´t remember the name of it, but bascially one person takes the kite string which is wrapped around a used plastic bottle and throws it away from the direction of the kite. Of course the kite´s force pulls the string back toward it, where the rest of the players stand at the ready to catch the string. It´s actually a lot of fun. Until someone misses the string and the kite flies away. and gets caught in a tree. Which is what happened to my kite. Then the rescue mission began. The boys tied rocks to both ends of a piece of string and threw it up trying to lasso the kite down to earth. Mirna called just then and i was giving her cooking advice when the boys must have freed the kite somehow, but unfortunatley it drifted off and became entangled in another tree. The next thing i know chepe has climbed the tree, determined to save my kite. He must have spent 20 minutes among the branches scrambling around. I was afraid he was going to fall (it wouldn´t have been the first time a male injured himself trying to woo a female i suppose). I told him: ¨We can make another kite, but we can´t make another chepe!¨ But somehow, miraculously, he got the kite down. He couldn´t help but beam as he handed it back to me. I swear, if he was fifteen years older . . .


Oh i forgot to mention my favorite part about the actos civicos that were done in the park on independence day. They had just started up the himno naciónal, when this little boy of about 3 or so walked up to the space between the elevated stage and the first row of benches, unzipped his pants and well you can guess what happened next. Of course nobody did anything, meanwhile the mayor, reina de ipala, and everyone else of importance is up on stage singing away. for the rest of the morning everyone walking up to the stage (including the flag bearers) had to walk through the puddle of urine.

¡Viva la independencia!

Last week i headed to the capital to meet up with alexa and discuss the resource library move from the pc office in guate to the training center. It´s going to be a really big job. I have to go back to guate next weekend to really start digging in. Mirna came to guate as well and the three of us prepared for a nite out on the town in guate. i had spoken with juan josé the day before. He´d invited us to go to the beach with he and jimmy over the weekend but i´d told them that unfortunately we wouldn´t be able to go but we could still meet up on Thursday (the following) nite. He said great and told me to call when i got to guate. so after we finished up at the office, we headed the hotel, rested up, and got ready for our big nite out in the capital. We were excited because we´d never been out in guate before. I called juan josé and got his voice mail. Mirna called jimmy with the same result. After a few more calls and as time went on, we realized that they weren´t answering their phones and we should just head out without them. We went out to eat at a nice resteraunt in cuatro grados, a trendy part of town. Think guatemala does soho. After an amazing dinner and a glass of wine we were ready to hit zona viva where all the dance clubs are. So we caught a cab and headed out. But it looked more like zona muerte and we didn´t really know where to go. Tgifridays was closing down, there was a resteraunt with live music but it had a Q50 cover. The most happening spot looked like the bingo parlor. So mirna called a quasi friend-crush from san luis who studies in guate for advice. He offered to come pick us up and take us out. So we went into the mall to wait for him. All dressed up, in an empty mall, looking at a kitchenware display, waiting for omar. This was our big nite out. And were were having such a great time! Mirna said something like she can´t believe we got stood up by 20 year old guatemalan boys. We were laughing so hard we were almost in tears. Omar rolled in. He´d been in bed but came out just to rescue us. we ended up going to a salsa bar. There were some amazing dancers there, they must have been professionals, and there was no way i was getting on the dance floor. omar and mirna gave it a whirl and then he asked me to dance. I pretty much embarassed myself the whole time. I have the basic step down but any turns or tricks i get completely off. Alexa and i have decided to go to cuba after pc and just spend 2 weeks just taking lessons. By god i´ll be able to salsa if it kills me! i think the club closed at 1 and omar dropped us off at the hotel. Such a quality guy! So our big first nite out in guate didn´t go exactly like we had planned, but in the end it was definately for the better and i can´t wait to do it again.

El 15 de Septiembre is guatemala´s independence day. In fact it´s independence day for most of central america. Funny how that works. So this week there have been various actividades. I was going to participate in san luis´s entorcha relay with carolyn. I went to san luis on Monday nite, but upon arriving i realized that there was noway i was going to be able to ride in the back of a flatbed truck with dozens of guatemalans for two days taking turns running with a lighted torch. I just wasn´t feeling up to it. So i backed out and carolyn went by herself. I felt really bad about abandoning her, but if there´s one thing peace corps has taught me, it´s look out for numero uno. Living here is so difficult that you can´t waste precious energy and time doing something you don´t want to do if you don´t absolutely have to do it. So i ended up staying the nite at mirna´s. Mirna has since spoken with carolyn (i left a message but haven´t heard back from her) and she said she´s glad she did it but she´d never do it again. That´s what i figured she´d say. Anyway i didn´t go to school this week because there weren´t classes, just activities – volleyball games, niña y niño del independencia seleciones, giving sashes to the best students, stuff like that. I probably should have stopped by, but oh well. So the office was closed on Thursday and i headed to the park at 8 to watch the parade. The mayor and members of the cooaperación municipal lead the way followed by all the schools with their flags and marching bands and rhythmic gymnastics teams. I saw all my students and took lots of pictures. Then the floats drove by with little ladino kids dressed up in indigenous costumes. Kind of cute, kind of offensive. After the parade i headed to the public junior high where each classroom had made a exposition of a central american country. Most displays included caucasian dolls dressed up in trajes típicos and maps of the country made out of colored rice. It´s kind of the like the grange expositions at the central washington state fair, but not nearly as good. After that the rhythmic gymnastics teams performed again (i forgot to tell you that the name of the winning team was Chicos Rápidos). After that i headed home, lunched, and waited for the baile. Mirna called around 4:30 with some bad news. It seems the buses weren´t running and she wasn´t sure how she was going to get to ipala. Luckily omar´s brother gave her a ride and she rolled in around 6. sindy came over and the three of us had dinner, got ready and headed out around 9, stopping by to pick up another friend along the way. When i got to my friend´s house, she told me that she could come with us because her husband didn´t give her permission. Say what? I mean i know this kind of thing happens all the time here, but it still makes me upset. So we left without her and picked up lesly. Her mom told me ¨te van a robar¨ which means they are going to steal you because you look so pretty. A little confindence booster before the baile never hurt anyone. But at the same time i was reminded of a comment julia buckner´s mom made after seeing my sophomore year tolo pictures: ¨Lindsay could be so pretty.¨ Er, thanks, i think.When the four of us arrived at the gym, the reggaeton was playing but nobody was dancing yet. Mirna and i were ready to go so we headed straight to the dance floor to get things started. Sindy and Lesly went to the bleachers. I mean you can imagine the spectacle, right. Me in my silver sequined tank top and tight jeans, mirna in her heels and wife beater. Sensational. Later the merengue started up and sindy and lesly joined us on the pista with partners. Then more people came onto the floor to dance. Mission accomplished. Mirna and i kept dancing pretty much all night. We turned down a lot of drunk, sketchy guys, and danced with a few not so drunk, not so sketchy ones. The guys here are very persistant. In a couple cases i had to say no like 7 times, then the guy would still try to start dancing with me, so i would just stop dancing completely or move to a different part of the dance floor until he left me alone. Mirna and were taking a breather on the stairs when they started playing techno. A guy came over to ask me to dance. First of all i don´t dance to techno music (unless it´s an lgbta dance and i have on a wig), and i especially dont dance to techno with wasted guatemalans. This guy asked me like 15 times. Then he started poking my knee. ¨no me toques¨ i said while trying not to laugh because he had started dancing, i guess thinking that showing me his moves would convince me to change my mind. It didn´t and finally he left. The lowlight/highlight of the evening was a bit later on. I was dancing to reggaeton with mirna, and some guy came up to me and grabbed my ass. Really grabbed it. I mean of all the latina j-lo asses to grab on the dance floor, he chose mine? It doesn´t make any sense and for a second i was in shock. But then as i processed what happened, i got pissed. I saw him from behind walking away from me to my right, and i started walking after him to have some words. He turned back and saw me walking toward him, dropped his cigarette, and started running, actually running away from me. it was amazing. Way better result than anything i could have said to him. Mirna said she was ready to rip off her heel to throw at him. Luckily it didn´t have to come to that. We danced a bit more; i´m still trying to get down ranchera and banda. I´ve got a ways to go. I danced with a guy who works at the bank for awhile and then mirna, sindy and i decided to peace the place around 12:45. we went home, make some sandwiches in the snackster and headed to bed. Peace corps volunteers are often known for something in their towns. Miguelito, a guy here before me, was a really good soccer player. And erika was really good at playing with kids. I think the mark i´m going to leave will be Dancing Machine. In fact mirna and i have decided to make ¨getting the party started¨ our secondary project. Just don´t even think about grabbing our asses.

mis mañanitas

so it was my birthday on friday, the 2nd. i awoke at 6 am to the sound of firecrakers and laughing, and then ¨las mañanitas¨ (the original spanish version of happy birthday to you.) i sprang from my bed, camera in hand to see all my friends from the office though a haze of smoke singing to me. i got my seranata. i had been bugging milo about it for about a month since he plays guitar. he was there along with sindy, lesly, edwin, elizabeth, che, luis, manuel and emanual. they brought me tamalitos de loroco and hot chocolate. usually the person who recieves the seranata gives the food, but they knew better and brought the food with them. we spent the early morning eating and singing. it was awesome. then everyone took off for work. i got ready and headed to the office. i got lots of phone calls (thanks everyone!!) including one from juan josé and jimmy, the vaqueros i met at the san luis ferria. dave rolled into town in the afternoon around 3. we ended up going out to dinner and later to a friend´s bar. the evening was winding down so we decided to head home. but as we were passing the muni gym, we noticed that there was some sort of activity going on. public junior high school rhythmic gymnastics competition, Q5. done and done. the place was packed, standing room only. and the groups were not so good. they had fancy outfits and loud techno music but not much in the way of choreography. needless to say dave and i enjoyed ourselves. we headed home, poured some glasses of amarula and watched episodes of the family guy. saturday i woke up with a hangover. but luckily i didn´t have anything to do but eat the pancakes dave made and watch more episodes of the family guy. as the day wore on i started feeling better and getting the house ready for the party at 5. i had invited about 30 or so people to the house - kids from the office, neighbors, teachers. a had a couple ladies making tamalitos de frijol and loroco and some empanadas. mirna and carolyn came from san luis. it was a really nice evening. lots of people came and ate and gave me little gifts of cheesey guatemala recuerdos like statues of tikal and wooden key ring holders. people came and went, and ceci and nidia brought me a cake. as the night wore on we started to get ancy because the brazilian fly boys had rescheduled for saturday nite and we decided to go. so we packed up the leftover food, reapplied lipstick and headed out to the gym. we arrived around 8 but unfortunately the group had already performed and left by the time we got there. but we still enjoyed the baile. i mean i was working it out pretty hard on the dance floor and guys started taking pictures of me and probably saying inappropiate things. we ended the nite with more amarula and episodes of the family guy. my 3 pc friends headed home this morning and i feel like this birthday weekend lasted a month it was so packed. on the way to the internet just now, one of my 5th grade students who had been at the gym for the dance, stopped me on the street. ¨usted le gusta bailar.¨ ¨si, me gusta mucho¨ ¨baile bonito¨ ¨aye, gracias.¨ i can´t wait for the independence day dance on the 15th. ipala ain´t seen nothing yet.