Another Quick Update

Our car got hit by a chicken bus today. Fortunately we were both moving at about 5 mph (going over a speed bump). We took our their right side mirror and they scraped up the side of the van. Our driver was not happy. My opinion of these chicken buses keeps getting lower...

Solola and Xela

Some updates about the work we're been doing in Solola (Pana) and Xela. We worked with a couple women’s weaving cooperatives and a computer literacy organization that doubles as an after-school program and a student library. Our organization, Soluciones Comunitarias, is opening an office in Solola, so while half of the group visited the computer literacy organization (Swan Tinamit) the other half worked on a marketing plan for the new office. At the end of the week we had two different campaigns where we helped the assesoras do eye exams and sell products that benefit their communities, such as glasses, solar lamps, and water purifiers.

It definitely hasn’t been all work, though. On Saturday we went zip-lining over the forest with the lake on one side and beautiful waterfalls on the other side. I had never zip-lined before, and it was absolutely incredible. The zip-lining was in a nature reserve which had spider monkeys, butterflies, waterfalls, and hanging bridges. On Saturday night, we went out to a bar in Panajachel called Iguana which had tequila shots for 5 quetzales ( about 65 cents) and 3 beers for 25 quetzales (about 3 dollars). On Sunday night, we found a restaurant with a huge TV screen and watched the Mavs win the NBA Finals :).

We’re now in Xela, which is the second biggest city in Guatemala (right behind Guatemala City). It’s actually called Quetzaltenango, but everyone calls it by the indigenous name, Xela. We’re staying in two amazing apartments. The girls have one 3 single rooms and one triple room. Of course I picked the last number for the order in which we picked beds, so I have the only twin bed in the apartment which also happens to be hard as rocks. Yay! We have a kitchen, so we did some grocery shopping and are going to cook most of our meals this week. Yesterday was Emily’s birthday, so we went out to a yummy hamburger place and then came back to the apartment building and had cake and champagne on the roof. We scared the shit out of emily with some local fireworks and a creepy clown cake (they ran out of all of the other normal ones...). Then we all watched the movie Taken in our apartment (if you haven’t seen it, just a word of advice.. don’t watch it when you are abroad. Liam Neeson is a badass though). We may or may not be contemplating filming a "Real World" style TV show while we are here called Into the Jungle... we’ll keep you posted.

My Big Fat Mayan Wedding

Today everyone split into four different groups. Our group traveled two towns away to participate in a Mayan wedding demonstration at a textile/ weaving house in San Antonio. We learned that it's a tradition for single women in Guatemala to wear a "suter" (mayan woven blanket) on their shoulder. Traditionally, if a man wanted to marry a woman, all he had to do was grab her suter from her shoulder and tell her she was his (married women wear their suter on their heads). Once the couple was engaged, the bride-to-be had one year to weave her new mother in law a suter as a sign of respect. Because she had one year, the suter had to be absolutely beautiful. Also, it is impossible for two different people to weave a suter because the stitches wouldn't match up, so the bride had to make the entire thing herself. Her relative competency as a wife and mother would be judged on the beauty of the suter. Thankfully this practice no longer exists; women are allowed to choose their own husbands in San Antonio these days. After the breif mayan history lesson, some of the group got to participate in a "mock" wedding. Annie, Taylor, and Aubree were chosen to form the bridal party, while Sachin was chosen to be the groom. Annie ended up being the "important spiritual guide" (she had spent 12 hours praying on her knees before the ceremony), Taylor was the mother-in-law, and Aubree was the bride. Everyone got to wear traditional Mayan Traje (skirt, belt, top combination). Highlights included Taylor showering everyone in flower petals and the slightly awkward cheek peck wedding kiss. Afterward we got to watch one of the women weave on a traditional back-strap loom.

First Days in Solola

We’re now in Sololá, which is a region near Lake Atitlán, one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. On Monday and Tuesday, we worked with a women’s weaving cooperative called Lema that made beautiful products with natural dyes. We helped them with a marketing plan and business strategies. They taught us how to weave, and we “made” our own scarves (aka they were more like head wraps, and the teachers weaved about 3/4 of it). On Wednesday morning, we hiked up the “Mayan Nose,” which is a series of mountains that looks like a profile of a face. The hike was really, really steep but we made it to the top by singing “I’m a Survivor” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” We were also slightly demoralized as we came puffing up the hill and three 60-year-old Mayan women in flip flops came cruising down in front of us. But the hike was very much worth it, the view was amazing (although the bathroom at the top was “very Slumdog Millionaire” -Abby)

Today we did a bunch of different work. In the morning we went to some small villages where we are doing a campaign on Sunday and did publicity for it, which basically involved walking around and telling people about the campaign. Then we went to a really rural village called El Triunfo and worked with a group of women that have a weaving cooperation there called “Las Mujeres Del Triunfo.”
A lot of great things happened today, including:

-Jess almost peed her pants in excitement when she and Nick discovered that they could buy 300 “Cremas” aka Guatemalan Oreos, for $4 (they plotted to bring these cheap delicious cookies to the masses in the US and make millions).
-Dan, who had a vendetta against abbreviations, said his first “abbrev” (“Whats the guac sitch?”) This trip has been full of fun abbreviations, courtesy of Jess. Lolzerskates!
-We rode standing up in the bed of a pickup truck from village to village. Definitely my new favorite form of transportation.
-The boys of Team Oportunidad (Chris, Dan, Nick, Tim, and Devin) decided to form a singing quintet, and they specialize in singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in rap form and changing the words to whatever they feel like.
-We had to hike down to the house where we were meeting the El Triunfo women through farmland, and Abby and Jess each wiped out realllyyy hard on the path down. To add insult to injury, every time we turned around, there were at least 5 Guatemalan children staring/giggling at us from behind different trees. 
-Jess got shat on by a bird while she was riding in the back of a pickup truck in the rain.
Tim made a special “star shaped” tortilla, much to the amusement of the Mayan women we were cooking lunch with.
-Abby was fervently praying for her life as we rode the chicken bus back down to Panajachel. The bus was probably going about 50 mph down a mountain, making hairpin turns, most of the time about 4 feet away from the edge of the cliff that led down to the lake. 
-This actually happened last night, but we went out to eat in a restaurant, and I ordered a Diet Coke and the waiter went out to a tienda, bought me a Coke, and then served it to me. Chris ordered a Gallo (beer) and the waiter left and brought back a case of Gallo and served one to Chris. And this didn’t only apply to drinks (we thought, hey, maybe the fridge is broken). When the boys ordered a pizza, and the restaurant workers may or may not have called and ordered it from a pizza place down the street (the waiter walked past us with a pizza delivery box)... We left wondering if this restraunt actually sold anything...

Weekend Adventures

This weekend we stayed in a hostel in Antigua and had lots of adventures. The nightlife in Antigua is really fun. A lot of people that live in Guatemala City come to Antigua to go out on the weekend, so the bars are always packed. We all went out to a bar on Saturday night and got our dance on. 

The next morning, Abby and I got up at 7 to hike up to some waterfalls. We had heard that the hike was pretty easy, about 3 miles total, and the waterfalls were really beautiful. We drove out to the base and started hiking and quickly learned that it was NOT easy. It wasn’t very steep, but the hike involved scaling rocks, bush-whacking, trekking through rivers, and crossing very old, narrow, rickety, wooden bridges. A little while after we started the hike, a group of Guatemalan teenagers passed us, all carrying machetes and knives. That was a promising start. A couple people fell into the water and scraped themselves up a little, so Abby’s first aid kit saved the day (yeah, she had a first aid kit...). However, when we reached the first waterfall, it all became worth it. The waterfall was absolutely gorgeous. It was about 120 feet tall, and there was a group of locals repelling down it. We stayed there for a little while, ate lunch, and then continued onwards to the second waterfall. This was where the hike got treacherous. A couple people wanted to turn back when we had to rock climb up a vertical slope without any ropes or harnesses. We all made it to the second waterfall, though, (some took the longer, safer route) which was also very pretty. Finally we climbed back down and returned to Antigua for our last night in our home stays! (We're headed to Solola for this next week, home of Lake Atitlan, the most beautiful lake in Guatemala) 

Soccer and Salsa: What Guatemalans do Best

For the second half of the morning on Thursday and Friday, we learned some authentic Guatemalan pastimes. On Thursday, we had a salsa and merengue lesson taught by one of the Spanish teachers, Eduardo, who is probably about 5’ 0” and 90 pounds and can move his hips like Shakira. It was really fun, even though our whiteness and total lack of coordination pretty much guarantees that we will never be able to dance like the Guatemalans.

On Friday, we played soccer against the Spanish teachers. This was quite entertaining, since the teachers range from about age 20 to age 60 and included some of the female teachers who have probably never kicked a soccer ball in their life. The students split up into 2 teams and we played until one team scored, and then the losing team switched out and the other team came on. It got pretty heated, since we didn’t have actual goals (very typical of guatemalan "street ball") and couldn’t really tell when a goal was actually a goal and when it wasn’t (the referees were not helpful). It was a lot of fun, though.

Side note- On Saturday night, we saw the salsa teacher, and another Spanish teacher out at a bar and they both managed to make out with students and dance with probably about 15 more each. Creepy?

Whoops! Translation Errors

When speaking Spanish, it's very important to enunciate because many words have very similar sounding but completely different meaning (and wildly inappropriate) "twins"

1. Mucho and gusto

 You say: "mucho gusto" (nice to meet you)
You meant to say: "me gusta mucho" (I like this a lot)

Whoops: So while eating your delicious dinner, you accidentally told your family (or your meal) "nice to meet you" instead of "I like this a lot"

Embarrassment factor: 1.5 stars

2. Embarazada and verguenza

You say: "¡Estoy embarazada!" (I'm pregnant!)
You meant to say: "¡Tengo verguenza!" (I'm embarrassed!)

Whoops: as you leave the bathroom, your new host mom thinks your red face means you're with child, not that you can't figure out how to flush the toilet.

Embarrassment factor: 4 stars

3. Cansado and casado

You say: "estoy casado" (I'm married)
You meant to say: "estoy cansado" (I'm exhausted)

Whoops: when you exclaim "estoy casado" to your spanish teacher (while making an exasperated and tired face) she assumes you're having marital problems and launches into advice giving mode about the "machismo" perils of Guatemalan (and American) men

Embarrassment factor: 1 star

4. Caer and cago

You say: "me cago" (I just took a shit)
You meant to say "me caigo" (I just fell down)

Whoops: as you arrive home and announce the "big fall" you took on the cobble stone streets in Antigua, your home-stay brother can't stop laughing about the silly gringo that shit on the road

Embarrassment factor: 4 stars

5. Caliente and calor

You say: "estoy caliente" (I'm horny)
You meant to say: "tengo calor" (I'm hot)

Whoops: when you sit down to family dinner, fanning yourself and exclaiming "estoy caliente" after your intense soccer game, your family thinks your red and flustered for another reason...

Embarrassment factor: 5 stars

Lessons learned...