how i met el presidente and got into grad school all in the same weekend

So last Friday there was this job fair in Chiquimula and ADISO was invited to attend. I hadn´t planned on going, but Carlos asked me if i was going to come too. So i agreed. We got everything ready the day before: banner, brouchures, keychains to sell, photos, cpu, and a bunch of other stuff. Since we don´t have a car and it would have been difficult to bring all this stuff on the bus, dra. Flor said she´d lend us her car. We decided to leave at 6:30 am because there´s road construcion and we wanted to have enough time to set up the stand. I woke up at 5:40 and made my way to the office by 6:15 as milo and i had a agreed. I was the first to arrived and unfortunatley i didn´t have my keys to the office (mirna accidently took them to san luis earlier in the week.) so i sat on the curb for about 20 minutes. Milo showed up and carlos with the truck shortly after. We loaded up the truck and headed out. We passed by the gas station but it was closed. Luckily we had just rented two tents the day before so we had money to pay for gas. I suggested that we go to the other gas station a little out of the way, but what choice did we have. we got gas and met edwin in the terminal. It was around 7:30 and we were on our way. The feria de trabajo was in a girl´s high school and we set up in the gym-auditorium. I was just thinking about how professional we looked with all our equipment when we realized that we´d forgotten the mouse and keyboard in ipala. Oops. Carlos called his little brother (his family lives in chiqui) to ask him to lend us his. The fair was supposed to start at 9 or 10 but they didn´t start letting people in until around 10:30. i quickly realized that job fair means the same in spanish as it does in english. People were coming to look for work and we were without jobs to offer. Domino´s was there and wackenhut and the gas company. The stand to the right of us was a woman´s co-op from estanzuela. I started chatting with a woman as she handicrafted. Appearently the co-op was actually defunct because the former president stole all the money. But this woman and her friend were continuing on. The stand to the left was guatecompras, this governmental entity that monitors the government´s spending to make everything more transparent. Neither of these stands had jobs to offer either. Carlos and edwin took off to give some sort of project presentation to the Environmental Ministry and milo and i were left with the bad 80´s techno music and the few people who passed by our stand. I decided to take advantage of the captive audience and invited people to come visit the volcano and give them brochures and stuff. Then i had to put the smack down and talk to the dj to get him to change the music. I still have the music burned into my mind. It was horrible. A woman who works for a water park in río hondo called valle dorado walked over to us and we started chatting. Later she came back with 2 free passes to the water park. Sweet!! Then she came back a few minutes later with 2 more for milo. Double sweet. I want us to go as an office, but worst case i´ll just ask sindy or ema to go with me. I was told there´s a pool side bar and nothing sounds sweeter right now. Anyway carlos and edwin came back; they said the presentation went well and seemed happy. Edwin decided to leave and go back to ipala. We thought we were going to get lunch but really it was just a can of supercola (which i declined.) carlos brought back tacos de papa with were deliciously deep-fried. I had a couple and gave the rest to milo. We had another small dilemma: the president of guatemala was in ipala on Friday. He was in ipala to inagurate some obras like the new bus terminal and the paving of the road from the highway to chaguiton (halfway up the volcano.) before you needed a 4 wheel drive car to make it up to the aldea, but after the asphalt, any car should be about to make it. (except maybe a taz, right kate?) this is going to be great for tourism on the volcano. Because people are lazy sob´s and why climb up a volcano when you can drive up it in the comfort of your own car? Anyway, the president was supposed to be on the volcano to inagurate the project, but unfortunately the two representitives of ADISO who were supposed to be there, you know representing us, were mia. So, carlos considered going, but he had another presentation to give to INGUAT (the guate tourism board) in the afternoon in chiqui. So we had 3 people at this job fair in chiqui where we didn´t really have any business being, and nobody on the volcano which we co-administrate to greet the president of guatemala. Es típico. Carlos and milo went to eat lunch and i held down the fort. There wasn´t much to hold down, because nobody was coming in. The boys came back and the afternoon dragged on. There was a rumor that the president was going to come to the job fair later in the afternoon but i didn´t believe it for a second. This job fair was a flop. He was going to send some scouts in ahead of time and they were going to tell him as much. Carlos took off around 2:45 to give the other presentation. Milo and i tried not to fall asleep. A little later on some people started arriving. But not just any people. People in army gear who took up sniper positions on the roof and people who had bomb sniffing dogs on leashes. Alright. And then de repente, he arrived. Oscar Berger. (pronouned bear-shay) El presidente de la republica de guatemala. The band played. People stood up. And he started in with his pocas palabras talking about labor and work and i didn´t really listen. He was surrounded by a small croud of people holding up their cell phones to take pictures and record what he was saying. I walked up and snapped a few fotos too and went back to the stand. I called carlos to tell him to hurry up and come back. Milo wasn´t very excited. He´s angsty anti politics guy. I was excited. He began to walk around to the stands. He shook the guatecompras´ guys hands and i put my hand out too. He gave me a kiss on the cheek. I walked around the stand to get next to him. I kept thinking what with chris solarz do? Chris solarz would get the foto. I gave the president a keychain of the laguna and asked if he had been here. He said of course; they had just come from there, inagurating the asphalt project. (oh right.) i thanked him for all his support and said, ¨Gracias a Usted por todo su apoyo.¨. and then we took the foto with my camera. He gave me another handshake and kiss and he was off. I was pretty stoked to say the least. I´d never met the head of state before. Kick ass. Carlos came back a bit later. ¨You missed the president!!¨ i said. It turns out that the guy from inguat he was supposed to met up with didn´t even show up so he went there por gusto. Bummer. We started packing up but had to wait to leave until the crowds had cleared out. We stopped by carlos´s parents house to drop off the keyboard and mouse. His mom is so adorable. And she called me chula (cute) too. I always like it when little old ladies call me chula. When we got going again, the car wouldn´t start. So milo had to push us down the hill a ways and the engine turned over. Somehow the windshield wipers got turned on and carlos couldn´t figure out how to turn them off. It was pretty hilarious, driving around in the blazing chiquimula sun with the wipers on overdrive. I couldn´t stop laughing. Then i reached over and figured out how to turn them off. We were in a pretty good mood. All in all the day had been successful. And it turns out the president just circled the volcano in his helicopter anyway. we were headed back to ipala when carlos got a phone call. After he hung up, he seemed a more serious. I asked him que pasó? It was edwin. The rumor of the moment was that ADEGO, another ngo in ipala that focuses more on agriculture had just been promised half a million quetzales by the president. Not a big surprise. The mayor of ipala, roél pérez is the president of all the mayors of guatemala and of the same political party as berger. He´s also a big tool. He also doesn´t like ADISO very much. The president of the board of directors and my first counterpart ran against him in the last election. And in general people associated with ADISO are not of his political party. So the muni doesn´t help us all that much. And some say they´ve done stuff to sabotage (or sabowtage) us. on the other hand the muni hearts ADEGO so much. They have free office space and get a lot more financial help. And their secretary was La Flor de la Feria (ms. Ipala) last year. (her twin sister used to work for ADISO.) And now they´ve got Q500,000 to work with and we have Q60,000 in debt and no clear way of how to pay it off. ADISO and ADEGO aren´t rivals really. In fact a former executive director of ADISO works in ADEGO and just came in to visit last week. it´s just ugly politics. So the rest of the drive home was a little more somber. Although i said, ¨you know carlos, they may have half a million queztales, but we got a picture with the president.¨ carlos smiled. ¨Tienes razon.¨

On Monday morning it was raining. strange. Really strange. It never ever rains this time of year but here it is sprinkling at 8 in the morning. I walked to the office. I was the first one there. I now had my keys and opened the door. There was some mail on the floor. Light bill. My newsweek from peace corps. V-day postcard from mara. (thanks mara!) letter from unc chapel hill. I read the postcard, threw away the newsweek, and opened up the unc letter. Don´t tell me my application is missing something this late in the game. The letter started out something like this . . . ¨we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into unc chapel hill´s graduate program.¨ what?? i´m not supposed to be getting these for at least another couple months, right? The letter was dated feb 2. i did a victory lap around the office. Then i started calling people. I called alexa (left a message) and my sister (woke her up) and my parents (woke them up). What a great sign. I was so happy. All that gre studying, all those applications, all those emails, all the difficulty of doing it from guatemala, all seems so long ago. When i think about all i did between june and january to apply to grad school, i can´t believe it. nor do i have the energy to do it all over again now. To all my friends who have applied to grad school or are going to, i salute you. because it sucks. A lot. But believe me when you get that first letter of acceptance, it´s suddenly so worth it.

turbulance

Wow i´ve been out of touch. it´s been a rough couple of months. After i got back from new year´s, i got some horrible news. nidia´s father had been murdered. my friends had been trying to call me but i didn`t have phone reception in lanquìn. appearently he went missing on the 30th when he went out to their lands and didn`t come back. they sent out a search party on the 31st and i think nidia is the one who found him, killed by his own machete and gun. i visited the family as i soon as sindy told me the news. they were doing surprisingly well. they are an extremely religious and well-respected family. everyone said that the whole town was at the funeral. i really don`t know what the motive was. and given the shoddy police investigations around here, i doubt i ever will nor will the culpret be brought to justice. there were 3 murders in the last week of 2005 in ipala. a neighbor`s brother was shot in a drive by and a guy from chaguiton was killed. again, i really don`t know the motives.

i didn´t feel like doing anything after being gone for so long. School hadn´t really started yet and everybody was biding their time until the feria (january 20-26). I was so excited for the feria. Ipala´s patron saint is san idlefonso. But mostly i was stoked for a week of continuous dancing and street fries and churros. In the second week of january i got really sick. Your standard poops and pukes. It was the first time i´d ever gotten sick in ipala. I guess it had to happen once. I think it was some bad spinich i ate. You see spinach is a little difficult to get; it´s this really shitty 35 minute bus ride to chiquimula, a really shitty town. The spinach i had looked like it was about to turn so i decided to risk it. bad idea. ema and i met up to go running in the morning and although i wasn´t feeling well, i didn´t want to back out on only our 2nd day of exercising together. So we went for the run, i came back, showered and all that and then started to feel worse. I puked a few times in the afternoon and somehow made it to the store down the road to buy more toliet paper with out pooping my pants. What a relief. Ema came by and i asked him to go by me some gatorade and some crakers. He´s such a peach and pulled through in spades. I didn´t sleep much that nite for running to the bathroom every few minutes. I went through around 5 pairs of underware and put a beach towel down on the bed just in case. The next day Selma sent over some atol de plántino (a plantain smoothie) and i highly recommend it for anyone who needs to stop themselves up. i was feeling better but still pretty weak. i went over to the neighbor´s house in the evening because i was bored in my house. Although i didn´t really feel ready to eat real food yet, selma had made me a sopa del monte (weed soap), although of which monte i can´t remember. It had chicken stock and onion and i don´t remember what else. And it did not go well. The result was the worst, most painful gas i have ever ever had in my life and those of you who know me well know that i can be pretty gassy. It was odorless and soundless but so so painful and constant. It was like someone had but one of those acordian fire stokers in my mouth and kept pumping my full of air. I had to excuse myself and go home. I could´t sleep. I tried yoga positions. I tried going to the bathroom. I tried pepto. Nothing. Earlier i had been really proud of my body for taking care of itself and getting the elements responsible for making me sick out, but now i was just pissed. I kept saying to myself ¨what is this supposed to do¨ and ¨it´s time to come home.¨ finally i was able to get to sleep. The next day i was exhausted and didn´t leave the house. in all i was house bound 4 days. But it all passed and i went back to work on Monday.

That same Monday mom called to give me some bad news. My grandpa phipps had passed away. it wasn´t unexpected. I went over to the neighbors to tell them. When they asked me how old he was, i told them 90. they told me at 90 that his life was a blessing from god. I tried to think of it like that too. How lucky i am to have grown up with him and to have known him so well. But it´s always hard losing a loved one. Plus grandpa was just so cool. Picture johnny cash, but instead of a guitar, he´s got a table saw close at hand. So the next few days were a whirlwind. I decided to take advantage of the trip home and pack a bunch of shit up to take de una vez. Ema was really great. Driving my around and keeping me company. I left ipala at 3:30 in the morning on the 19th and he drove me to the bus terminal. I had been told that the pullman left at 3:30 which is why i got up so early; my flight wasn´t until the next day. But at 3:30 in rolls in a normal camioneta (tricked-out school bus). I was so pissed. But not really. I got into guate and was checked into the hotel before 7 am. Sarita came and joined me at tikal futura. It was really nice of her to see me off.

My trip home was a whirlwind too. Kim came home. The funeral was on Monday. It was a nice and simple service. I of course cried the whole time. You know how sensitive i am. It was nice to see my cousin deann and her sons. Her husband wrote a really nice poem about grandpa saying that he hopes he´s just like him in his golden years. The rest of the time at home i enjoyed visits from joe and p, and shannon (I´m always up for a trip to the yakima valley museum and a sleepover at the o´connor house) and eating a lot and finishing up financial aid stuff for grad school. And it was time for me to head back to guate.

I was only in ipala 2 nites and i headed out to antigua with sindy to go dancing. It was such a different experience going out in antigua with one guatemalan friend then with a big group of north americans. We had a good time and we danced a lot which was the goal. We had been talking about making this trip happen for such a long time, i´m glad we finally got the chance to do it. the next day was the superbowl. Go hawks. Although it didn´t turn out as i´d liked, i had a good time and my steeler´s fans friends were good sports. Well all of them except for mirna.

My training group started rolling into antigua for our close of service conference which began on Wednesday. They put us up in this really nice hotel and although i´d planned to take salsa lessons with gabriel and do all this other stuff, basically i didn´t leave the complex. (it was kind of far from the central park.) the cos conference was really good, but so compressed and emotional and difficult. We were all trying to reflect and process the events of the past two years, personal and professional. And we all knew this was the last time we´d all be together as a group and probably the last time some of us would see each other. And it was hard for me to be around noel for so many days in a row. I havent had the opportunity to have distance from him and i was excited that this was the last time we would have to be around each other and that hopefully one day, we´ll want to be around each other again and it will be so much better. I just don´t like how we are treating each other right now and i don´t like how i feel when i´m around him. So the conference ended on Friday and we were all so exhausted. mirna had planned a birthday dinner at casa santo domingo, a five star hotel. So we all got dressed up and ready and it was such a nice nite. We had a valentine´s day secret gift exchange. Meredith and i had each other! It was so perfect. And then we went dancing at the casbah. One last dance up on stage with dave and a random gay guy. And then alexa wowed everybody. I swear nobody was dancing; they were all watching her.

Alexa and I decided that we couldn´t leave on Sunday so we decided to stay another day with bob, meredith, and sarah. It was a very chill day, lots of eating and hanging out. Right before we were about to go to bed, alexa and sarah closed the door to the room sat down on the bed opposite me. they looked serious. ¨we have something to tell you and it sucks but we wanted you to hear it from us . . . noel is dating rachel.¨ i wasn´t shocked because in december i had suspected that there was something going on between them and i think 6 months being single has got to be a new record for him, but i was still really upset of course. After the crying and the not so much anger but disgust, we got ready for bed. I didn´t sleep at all. And i was a mess at breakfast. Bob joined us and i kept crying and i couldn´t eat. Bob is so sweet. He asked me if i had any questions. I said no, that i thought i knew noel well enough so that all my questions were already answered. I was really ready to get out of antigua. It always better once i get on the bus. It´s so hard to leave, but once you´re on the bus it´s all down hill. Especially once i take the bus to guate, catch the cab to the zone 4 termial and get on the pullman to jutiapa. Once i got on the pullman i felt so much better about everything. The conference was over. I´m almost out of here. I´m happy in ipala and have great friends there. I love my peace corps friends who are the only reason i´ve gotten through this experience. I have amazing friends and family waiting for me at home. I´m going to grad school in the fall (i don´t know where yet, but somewhere), i´m about to finish this ridiculously hard chapter of my life and nothing will ever compare to the struggles i´ve had here, and more importantly, i´m not in an unhealthy relationship that makes me sad and moody all the time. I win!!!!!

It´s been nice being back in ipala for a long stretch of time. I was gone over 3 weeks except for that one day between coming back from the us and leaving for antigua. I´m eating better and i´ve started jump roping everyday. I have a ton of work to finish up but feel good about having enough time to do it all. My very last site visit from flavio is on Wednesday and then i will never have to deal with him again either. Good ridance. Ema asked me out to dinner for día de cariño (feb 14) although here it doesn´t have to be as romantic as in the states. It´s really common for friends and family to celebrate together. However, i am pretty sure he´s developed a crush on me and to diffuse the situation i invited mirna and her friend, chino, and sindy to go with us. we ate at cafe alhambra, my favorite place, and they had people singing live. The propblem was that the music was really loud, the female singer was wearing a tiny sparkley tube top and tight pants and sticking her boobs in everyone´s face (not ideal if you are out with your boyfriend for a romantic valentine´s day dinner) and she sang a lot of broken-hearted ranchera songs, which for me was great, but for actual current couples not the best choice. But we had a lot of fun. I think it was one of my best valentine´s days ever. No, it definately was.