Brother time...

The rainy season is in full swing, blah! I had forgotten how much I hate rain. Everything get so wet, things mold over night, you are stuck in doors every afternoon, your laundry never dries and most of all there is no sun, depressing!

My brother, Brandon was here for the last 12 days. It was sooo much fun (most of the time)! We have not gotten to spend that much time together, I think, since I went to college and it was the first time that it was just the two of us! I had a blast with him! It was interesting to see the things he thought were cool, different, and interesting. I don’t know if it is just things that I have forgotten that I thought or if it is the difference between male and female or age difference! For example the traditional clothing, I think, is one of the most beautiful things about Guatemala and my brother could have cared less but he thought the machetes all the men carried were cool, and he thought it was fun that I had to burn my trash, were I see that as a hassle.

We did a lot of hanging out at my house doing nothing. We helped with the cooking and did a lot of cleaning for me! He built me a water drainage tunnel so that I would not get so much mud on my porch, all while I sat around and read! I am going to miss having someone to do stuff like that for me! He even helped with the laundry, couldn’t believe it!

We did a lot of traveling too. We went to this amazing beach in Sipacate! The first night we were there, we were the only ones on the whole beach! The beach is a black sand beach with great waves for splashing in, which we did a lot! We also find completely whole sand dollars, which for as many years as I have been going to the beach in Florida have never found. The lodging was a little rustic, think bungalows and mosquito netting! But all in all a great, relaxing weekend away!

We also hiked Volcano Pacaya, which is amazing! You hike up for about 45 minutes to this massive cooled lava “mountain” and then you hike to where the lava is flowing on the over side! I was so incredible; I cannot believe I was 10 feet from flowing lava, wow! It was so hot up there is actually melted the shoes of one of the guys we were with! Brandon was scared that his pants were gonna burn!

Brandon also got to go to one of my meetings with my women’s group. We made corn bread, which is one of his favorite foods so he was happy but bored because he could not talk with the women. The fact that Brandon could not speak Spanish did not stop the women from talking to him! He thought they were laughing at him the whole time but they were just talking about how cute and tall he was! They just thought he was the most adorable thing ever!

For his last weekend here I took Brandon to Panajachel on the lake! Normally it is incredibly beautiful but unfortunately tropical storm Alma brought rain, rain and more rain so it wasn’t as cool as normal! Plus we were stuck with each other in a hotel room for two afternoons straight, which by the end we wanted to kill each other!

I was sad for Brandon to leave but I was also ready to get back to my normal routine and I know that he was anxious to get back to start summer baseball! All in all it was amazing to finally see my brother and get to hang out with him so much, without family or friends around! It was great bonding time and we are both alive to tell about!

I miss my family....

This past week I had a very eventful week. Two Thursdays ago I got really sick, fever, horrible side and shoulder pain that lasted through Monday. So on Monday afternoon I went to the Peace Corps doctor in Guatemala City and he decided to admit me to the hospital for test, thinking I just had a kidney infection! Well it turns out that all my test came back negative for everything so I was a medical mystery! In the end he decided that it was a viral infection on the lining of my lungs that had started to affect my liver and kidneys somehow and that is why I had so much pain there! It was a somewhat scary experience because it was the first time that I can remember that I was in the hospital and then him telling me he didn’t know what just a little to much for me!

But on the other hand the hospital was great. I had a great bed, comfortable, hot shower, CABLE (got to watch all about the election as it was happening and not a month later) and good food ( I know hospital food is normally horrible but this was really good)! It was a little difficult to communicate with the nurses not because it was only Spanish but because city Spanish is soooo much different than pueblo Spanish, faster, more educated, etc.!

The city it another country within Guatemala. When I got to the city I can get, find, do almost anything that I could want or need! There are movie theaters, malls nicer than most in the states, fast food drive-through, and just in general a huge city feel! But then you will look out your window and see little women in corte, with a huge load of something on her head weaving her way through the suits and designer jeans. It is a mind boggling experience, seeing the two worlds collide is wild!

I am so EXCITED because my brother is coming on Wednesday! It has been nine months since I have seen anyone in my family and it feels almost surreal that he is coming! I think it is going to be a good experience for both of us! For him because he has never been out of the country, let a lone to a developing world. And I am anxious to see what he notices that I have become accustomed to and had forgotten is different! I just cannot wait to see him, I have missed him so much, especially watching him kick butt this season in baseball! He was pitching of the week for his conference twice, a feat never accomplished before! Sorry just had to brag a little!

So the rains have started to make their way in every couple of days and I already hate it! I don’t know what I am going to do when it is everyday…ahhh! But I guess that I have to learn with this too!

Until next time…..

On the move...

Well it has been a while since I last updated but I have been quite busy! First I moved into my new house about two and a half weeks ago and LOVE it! It has given me a new start here in San Martin. I am living in a family compound but my house is separate from the family’s but the kids come over all the time to play cards and “talk” with me in my broken Spanish! I really enjoy having people around more and I feel more integrated into the “neighborhood” I will try to upload photos as soon as I can!

My organization moved offices last week and let’s just say it was an experience! I work with all men so they told me that they needed the feminine touch “toca feminine” to set up the office! I was really excited about this because the other office’s disorganization drove me up a wall. So I started to move things around where I wanted them and they almost had a heart attack that I was moving things on my own. They kept telling me “No, you don’t need to do that.” “No, you aren’t able to do that.” I did not know how to respond to this because, as most of you know, I am really bull headed and stubborn so my first reaction was to tell them “Hell, no I can do this.” But then I realized that it was just the Guatemalan thing, that kind of stuff is a man’s work. It is times like that, that I have to sit back and be the “Guatemalan” Mackenzie, which I can tell you is hard! But I do have to say the guys that I work with are awesome, they really make sure that I am ok, I have everything that I need and that I am happy!

So decorating is tough with Guatemalans because they like things very cut and dry. What I mean by this is that they put everything in a corner or lined up exactly with the wall! There is no angling of a table or having something away from the wall so my ideas were not really well received but they went with them, so I am anxious to see if it is still the same when I go to the office today!

I have started to work with two women’s groups, which has been awesome! I pretty much just bake bread with them but I am going to try to start tire gardens with them towards the end of May or early June! The food prices here have sky rocketed and most of these women were barely making ends meet before so now many of them are not able to afford vegetables! Malnutrition is the highest here in Guatemala even though we are not the poorest country here in Central America. I keep telling the women that instead of giving the kids a Q1 to buy Tortrix (the preferred snack here) they should give them a carrot or beets or what not because then they will not have the white splotches on their faces! Working here is a, sometimes, painfully slow process, but when things work out it is an amazing feeling!

This past weekend I was able to travel up to Uspantan, El Quiche, to help build school entirely of plastic bottles stuffed with trash! It is a really cool project. It is a great project to do in Guatemala because littering is second nature here and it helps clean up the town/village! For the school they needed thousands of bottles filled with trash to the point that you could walk on the bottles without sinking in! I am attaching pictures because it is difficult to explain!

That is about it from San Martin, but I will try to get better about updating this thing!

Moving on...

The coffee harvest is finally finished, thank goodness! We ended up selling more than we had originally thought which is wonderful but we still have lot of work to do! The biggest problem is that people need money right now, they have to buy food, clothing, and have other expenses, so they end selling to the coyotes for a lower price because the Co-op does not pay until the end of the season.

There was an article in the national newspaper recently describing how bad the economy is getting here (I know this is happening all over)! The price of bread, tortillas, rice and corn has almost doubled in the last two years while most families’ incomes have not. I know that this is happening in the United States too, but in Guatemala there are not government agencies to help the low income families or banks to give loans to those who can afford them! When people don’t have the money, they don’t eat! Even though this years coffee prices were the highest they have been in years, many people sold at lower prices because they needed the money, just one obstacle of working in a developing country!

This past week I have what the Peace Corps calls reconnect. It general it is pretty boring, lots of talking, sitting and listening but all that aside it was nice to see that I am not the only that has thought about going home, who has good days and bad ones, and who is sometimes so frustrated that I don’t think I can handle it anymore! I also thought that I was the only one who had to deal with “harassment” (not necessarily the kind that happens in the states). Here in Guatemala is the more the constant “shhhh shhh” that you get from guys on the streets or the dirty jokes that men make to one another that really starts to get under your skin! But I also had another 3 days of Spanish which was wonderful since I feel like my Spanish has been getting worse since I came to site, which is I didn’t think was possible!

It was funny though because I was so excited to see everyone but by the end of the week I was ready to get back to San Martin. I never realized how use to being alone I had gotten but I felt like I was on overload being around that many people for that long, it was weird! Also, San Martin has become where I am comfortable! It is kind of like when you take a vacation and it is wonderful but you also so glad to get home; that is what it was like!

I am moving this week to a real house! It has three rooms and a bathroom, cute little porch, and is with a great family! I am really excited I will try to upload pictures as soon as I get everything settled!

First Visitors

First Visitors…

This past week Carolyn and Dorothy were here with me in Guatemala! I cannot even describe how I felt waiting for them at the airport…I felt like I was seven again waiting for Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought me! Having them here was almost like a dream, I could not believe that someone from the States was here…in Guatemala, it was surreal! I couldn’t sleep the first night they were here for fear I would wake up the next day and they wouldn’t be there!

We had a great week though. We traveled to the lake, my site and Antigua! It was so relaxing just sitting around talking, catching up and showing them “my country.” It was fun having them in my house, making dinners and just showing them what an average day in the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer entails, which sometimes as they saw is unpredictable! I was really sad to see them go but oddly enough I was ready to get back to work and San Martin, it has become home! It feels good after I have been gone for a weekend to come back and just relax, and know where everything is…kind of like coming home from college for Christmas Break! I never really thought that this place would feel like “home”

This week is Semana Santa and I am spending Thursday and Friday in Antigua to see all the processions there! Antigua has the biggest celebrations in Guatemala during Semana Santa. I am going to spend Saturday and Sunday here in San Martin! I am really exciting to see all the processions and to see how active San Martin becomes!

It is interesting how some things are the same no matter where you are in the world! I don’t know how many of you learned to player the recorder in 4th grade but I sure did! I loved learning, it was so much fun, although I am sure my parents didn’t enjoy it as much! Where am I going with this…the other day I was sitting in the office and I hear a young boy playing the same song that I learned to play when I was in 4th grade and it totally took me back to my days of innocence! The next day the streets were filled with kids and their recorders and that is when I began to understand how much my parents probably hated it! There were way to many kids that did not know how to play it, many groups of boys who just wanted to see who could make the loudest sound and still others who just played random notes, someone help me!

What a week...

Last week was the week from HE double hockey stick…haha just had to throw that one in for a little humor before I begin my rant! So here is how my week went…

1. My counterparts did not have any of the stuff typed up I had left them for the
weekend and on top of that they lost the papers!
2. My camera got stolen out of our office.
3. I broke a cup and a dish at the house of one of the guys I work with.
4. I thought I had lost my grandma’s ring (found it three days later).
5. The zipper on my favorite skirt ripped.
6. My charger died so my computer is not able to charge.
7. The camera I was going to buy off of amazon.com sold before I could buy it.
8. I could not get my packages at the training center (then did by sheer luck).
9. They changed the password on the computers at the training center so I could not use it.
10. Worst of all, I didn’t have minutes to call anyone and cry, sad!

So this was my week last week, probably one of the worst of my life. I was so sad that I tossed around the idea of going to the airport and buying a ticket home…I was in a bad state!

But then I met my sitemate in Antigua and had a great day hanging out, laughing and eating of course! We went back to San Martin and made Mac and Cheese (the real stuff, courtesy of Courtney, THANK YOU)! That mac and cheese made all the other stuff seem like it was far, far away! We went to Marc’s restaurant (an American that lives in San Martin) to make our mac and cheese and watch a movie on the big screen/projector thing that he has and it was idyllic compared to the rest of the week!

This week has started off much better! We sold half of our coffee yesterday which is about 400 lbs of dried beans which is approximately 1800 lbs of the coffee fruit! I was like a proud mother at a school play while they were loading it into the truck! The farmers were so excited and proud of what was happening that it was hard not to be beaming like them! Some of the farmers got checks for Q1200 – Q1500 ($160-200)! That is something here!

I am really excited too because I am going to have my first visitors on Saturday! Carolyn and Dorothy, the women who I lived with this summer, are coming for Carolyn’s spring break (Carolyn was my professor at LFC, well more like one of my closest friends)! I cannot wait to show them San Martin and Guatemala!

Amazing...

You know how your parents always asked you “If your friends jumped off a cliff would you?” Well this past week I did just that, I jumped off a 10 meter cliff because my friend did! We were at Semuc Champey which might be one of the most amazing, beautiful and tranquil places I have been! Semuc is in Alta Verpaz about 3 hours from Coban and is an amazing natural wonder. It is located in this huge gorge and I don’t know how to exactly explain it but it is a river that actually runs under this limestone plateau. The plateau has a bunch of natural pools, waterfalls and great places to jump off cliffs!

When you first get into the area you hike up the side of the mountain that forms the gorge, I mean straight up, it was hard but so worth it! When you get to the top, there is an amazing view of the whole gorge, the pools and the river! The hike down was a lot easier and you could hear the water rushing under the plateau, which was incredible! We then spent the next 4 hours lounging, swimming and exploring! At the end of our time there, our guide took us to where the plateau ends and he had us climb down this rope ladder to the cave like area under the plateau! You could see the river’s strength and how fast the water was moving out from under the plateau, it really made wonder how things this powerful and amazing exist because it is so unreal! So after the terrifying experience of climbing down the ladder, he took us to a spot where you can jump off into the water below, not my type of thrill but my friend and I decided to take the plunge after 10 minutes of building up courage! So he told me if I jumped he would, so I told him ok, you go first! The next thing I knew he was jumping and it was my turn, what was I thinking! It turned out to be an amazing adrenaline rush and cool experience! I am so glad that I did it!

The rest of my weekend consisted of PACA shopping, which I am proud to say that I came away with a new pair of jeans for Q10 (Q $1.30) and two new shirts! I love the PACA shopping here, anyone who visits, I promise will love it too! I also got to hangout with a bunch of people from my training group, most whom I have not seen since New Years! All in all this past two weeks have been great! My farmers are doing great with their processing and the coffee market is soaring, the highest it has been since the 1980’s!!! All in all things could not be better!