One comical story to start out...yesterday Amelia, Kat, and I were
planting trees/talking and a bunch of indigenous peeps were coming to
the park and we ended up talking to one woman in particular who was
interested in what we were doing. We tried explaining the concept of
volunteer work, but she was having none of it, convinced we were
getting paid by our respective governments. She was so funny as she
kept on saying "aahhh Ustedes" and shaking her head and smiling. She
got a kick out of the fact that I was half Guatemalan and she related
this fact immediately to her friends in Kaqchiquel as soon as they
rejoined her and they were equally incredulous...the lovely people of
Comalapa...
Amelia and I also have become somewhat known for our participation in
the parade! Kat said that she was talking with a woman who used to
teach at Chimiyá and Kat mentioned that there were some new volunteers
and, sure enough, the woman picked us out as the two gringas from the
parade.
Amelia and I have now gotten our adobe stove-making numbers up to
about 2 1/2 stoves/grills. It´s fun and we get up every morning
expecting to be just filthy by the end of the day.
Sunday though we got to go to Kat´s house in town where she has
electricity, running water, a shower, and tv! We were all super
excited for our little sleepover and were not in the least
disappointed. We went on the roof for a while to look over Comalapa
(which has about 37,000 people), watched movies, and to top it off, on
Monday morning, we all took advantage of a nice shower...nastily, it
was the first one I´ve had since
being here. About 5 days ago we found these "bath wipes" when we were
clearing out one of the rooms which were wipes to "give you a bath"
which we found quite funny but we found to be a useful way to try and
keep clean. Anyhoots, shower=nice, warm shower=heavenly. It´s funny
how little you really NEED in order to survive.
Next Wednesday I´m going to head off with Amelia to the northern part
of Guatemala. She is trying to cover all of Central and South America
before January 2007, so after we travel for about a week in Coban,
Tikal, and around Peten, she´ll be going through Belize and Mexico to
fly to Cuba for a week before heading back down through Central and
South America. Anyhoots, we´ll both be traveling through Guate then
and after I come back to Chimiyá for a bit I´ll hopefully travel a bit
more through Guate.
Today we had a lesson with the kids who are just wonderfully
enthusiastic about anything we throw at them. Never have I seen kids
so excited shouting RED or TRIANGLE or BLU-AY (how they tend to
pronounce "blue"). They are so fun and eager to learn it´s inspiring.
But we have to get going and catch a taxi-moto back with our 3 5-
gallon jugs of water and all the food we just bought. Having no
refridgerator means getting fresh food on all the market days:
Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. The taxi-motos are ridiculously small
scooters/cars that roar through the streets giving the rider the
thrill ride of their life, complete with bumps, a little danger, and
wind blowing in your face...oh they are so fun.
Ttyl!
annemary
ps: snake count: 6
nastily large spiders: 2
bug bites on hands: 37
