¡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.