Fam is Here

It has been a while, but here I am. Right now as I write this, my dad and sis are all up in this beast called Guatemala. Their trip here is coming to an end in just a couple of days, and it has been great to have them here. Allow me to give you a pictoral review of our vacation in Guatemala.


First, we went to Antigua and did Antigua stuff like eat, sleep, and take pictures with Santa.


From there, we headed up to Cobán for a night to break up the drive a bit. We went out to dinner there and the fam got to meet some friends of mine from here. More eating and sleeping. The next morning, we made it into my site just in time for...






The final of the soccer tournament we have been playing in since late September. We won 4-0. Santa also made an appearance at the game. I don´t really realize how big of a freak I am here until I see pictures like this one. It helps me understand why I still make some little kids cry why I come near.

After the soccer game, we spent Christmas eve eating and singing in various households of my hometown of Santa Lucía. We spent the next 3 days checking out the tourist areas in the region. One day at Laguna Lachuá (1st pic, with my buds and fellow volunteers Andy Patari and Chris Barry), a day on the jungle cruise of Roqha Pomtila (2nd pic) and a day hiking around Salinas Nueve Cerros (3rd pic).

As the pictures might suggest, it was great wholesome-family-jungle fun. I´m really glad they got to experience this stuff. Ok, that´s all for now. I miss y´all and love you. Happy new year.

Tortillas

Tortillas are the staple food here in Guatemala, and it becomes even more apparent when you live out in the boonies like I do. It seems that the poorer of an area you are in, the larger and more essential to the meal tortillas become. Here is a copy of a conversation I have had a bunch of times with a bunch of different people in my town. Every time the phrase “eating tortillas” was used in conversation, here I replaced it with “drinking water” so you can get a better idea of what this interaction sounds like to them. Here we go: 

Person from Santa Lucía: “In your country you guys drink water, right?”
Me: “Uh, ya, but not like you do here.”
Person from Santa Lucía, with a look of slight confusion and worry: “What do you mean?”
Me: “Well, we don’t drink water every day, let alone with every meal. It might be a part of a meal maybe once a week.”
Person from Santa Lucía, laughs in amazement, then: “But here you got used to drinking lots of water, right?”
Me: “Ya, I like drinking water now, but it´s not something I need to survive.” 
Long pause, then Person from Santa Lucía: “Huh, well, let´s go _________________” (fill in the blank).
Me: Ya man, let´s go do that.  
 
Here are some other fun tortilla facts:
o Wa (pronounced kwah) is the q´eqchi´ word for tortilla. It also means food. One time, I went to a friend’s house asking to buy some tortillas and was given an entire meal.
o Xorok (pronounced show-roke) means “to make a tortilla” and “to applaud”. If you’ve ever seen a lady clapping one out, you know why.
o The first time I accidentally grabbed two tortillas instead of the customary one at a time, I was worried I had committed a horrible cultural mistake. When my dining partner asked me with a serious face if I knew what the q´eqchi´ people have to say about that, I replied with a nervous “no”. 
“Well,” he said with a sudden smile on his face, “it’s just like having two women at the same time!”

Ah man, the people here are great. I’m still having a good time and looking forward to seeing my dad and sister next month. I can’t believe it has been close to a year since I have seen anyone from home. Hope all is well with you. Let me know. 

B´ex

Alive and Wet

It’s been a while, but I am still here doing my thing. I haven’t had much access to internet lately because it has been raining so much, roads have either washed away or flooded and there hasn’t been passage to any towns. We haven’t been all that affected by it here in Santa Lucía, but our neighboring towns that live by the river got it bad. People have had all of their crops and animals washed away by the river. So all these people have left are their houses. Red Cross came out this week to help them get back on their feet. Sad stuff.

On the happy side of the coin, the rains didn’t stop my soccer league this past weekend. I am now one of those freak celebrities that I talked about in an earlier post, but in many other towns. Before the games, people shout my name and when I smile and wave, most just stare at me and laugh nervously. Little by little they are learning that I’m a nice guy and nothing to be afraid of. During the games, I get an earful from the other team’s fans. Afterwards, it all depends on how my team did. Santa Lucía is currently in 3rd place. Tomorrow, we play the 4th place team, so it should be a good one.

Baseball is still played by many of the kids here, only it has changed a bit. As you may remember, everyone calls me B´ex (pronounced Besh). So, because I taught them the great American pastime, and because of my name´s striking similarity to said game, Baseball is now called B´exball. Ha, I love it.

I´ll leave you with a photo of another one of my favorite pastimes that I taught to the kids here.



Yes, the 5 year old in the background is playing air guitar with my sharpened machete. Don´t worry, he already has much more experience with those than I do.

I´ll update again soon. Hope all is well with you.

jual tiq li saq´e

The title means it´s hot in the sun and is the number one phrase I hear and use in q´eqchi´. I am still having a blast here in the jungle. Right now, I have access to internet because I am visiting my original host family from training. One of the daughters is getting married tomorrow, so I made the 10 hour trip today for tomorrow´s big event. Here is a picture of the tree closest to my house up there in Santa Lucía. It got struck by lightning. Don´t worry Babs, only 1 person in the history of my town has died due to lightning related injuries.


On a different note, September 15th was independance day here. So fun! The night before we celebrated the way they do every year by running home-made torches from a far away town to ours. From there, all of Santa Lucía showed up to watch 5 local girls compete in what we know as a beauty pageant. The girl I picked to win got 2nd place. The next day, we competed in a soccer tournament in the next town over and got third place. The festivities culminated that night with a dance. People were stoked to see me there and got even more jazzed when I started to dance. At one point, there were several guys crowded around the girl I was currently dancing with and myself making high-pitched sweaks to the beat of the music. Hilarious.
Work is also going well and little by little Salinas is becoming a tourist destination. I hope all is well with you. Special shout out to those of you who have mailed me stuff. It has all been great and I really enjoy hearing from you.

Lachuá

Hey people. Here are some pictures of a trip I took with friends to Laguna Lachuá for a day.

These guys are my buds. From left to right, that´s Hugo, Manuel and Manuel. I´m way bigger than them.



And these are of the lake. Enjoy and have a nice day

Q´eqchí

Written August 1

So now that I can speak q´eqchí like a pre-schooler, I have noticed some differences in the way we talk. With the introduction of certain gadgets, my indigenous buddies have been forced to come up with some names for things they had never seen before. Here are a couple examples:

• Kaxlan xam literally means “foreigner´s fire” but is understood to mean electricity.
• Ulul ch´ich´ is a computer, but translates to “metal brain”
• To say there is a full moon, you say xorok li po, which means “the moon is a tortilla” (I understand the moon isn´t a gadget introduced by foreigners, but you get the idea of some differences in the languages)
• Xwara po is a new moon, but really just means that the moon is sleeping.
• An airplane is a so´sol ch´ich´, or a metal vulture.

Talking about how isolated we are here in Santa Lucía Lachuá reminds me of something that happened yesterday. I was hanging out with some neighbors and in a mixture of q´eqchí and mostly Spanish, we were able to understand each other. One girl asked me if it was true that there were buildings in the United States that had 15 stories. When I told her that buildings can reach 100 stories she flipped out.

“So those buildings, like, scrape the sky?” she asked me while she made a clawing motion with her hand.

I chuckled, and then said “Well ya, actually, we call them skyscrapers.”

I guess our languages aren´t as different as I originally thought.

Update

Hello again friends, family, and maybe enemies... No pictures today, but I do have some words for you. Here is a quick update on my life in bullet-point format:

• The last time I made it to Salinas (the park we are starting) I saw a crocodile bigger than me, a family of spider monkeys, and more mosquitos than I thought possible.
• Fourth of July was a good time and it was great seeing all my American friends here again.
• My soccer team is 3 and 4 and we play the worst two teams to finish up the season. We should end up in about 4th place which will be good for the playoffs.
• I started working with a newly formed group of youngsters in town and it has been cool. They started up a little library. It is a breath of fresh air to work with kids. They actually respond better when I am my goofy self.

That is all that is new for now. Congrats to all my recently graduated friends. I see pictures of you guys online and it bums me out I missed the festivities. But hey, I celebrated for you here.

I´m a freak

Hello friends and family. Fourth of July is coming up. I´m going to miss being home for the traditional family bash at the Joseph house, but thankfully it is also a big day for those of us in Peace Corps Guatemala. All one hundred and seventy something volunteers here make the trek to Antigua where we have a place rented out. There, we get to BBQ and play all day long. Just like home! I´m looking forward to that.

In other news, life in the site is good. It is certain that by now everyone in town knows me. The best analogy I can draw to being the first gringo to live here is the time I had to dress up as Smokey the Bear for work back in the States.
Here´s why:
-Most kids are stoked to see me and ask me a thousand times how I´m doing while they shake my hand or give me a hi-5.
-Some kids are a little apprehensive to say hi and when Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, or Friend tries to force them, they usually end up in tears.
-People ask me to just give them stuff. (I guess that´s more like Santa than Smokey)
-Everywhere I go, people seem to pop out of nowhere to scream “B´ex!” (that´s my name, remember?) and then wave to me excitedly.

All that may sound a little overwhelming or annoying, but it isn´t. I have gotten to know some really good people here and I take their excitement as meaning that they like me. So ya, that´s a good thing.

Here are some pics of those good people.

These are Ramiro´s 3 youngest kids. From the left, Hector, Julio and Walter. They´re great. I always make fun of their pot-bellies, so here we are showing them off. If I look a little weird here, it´s because I´m trying to look fat and I can´t even pretend to do that.

Welp, the other pictures won´t load so it looks like just one will have to do. Take care and have fun on the 4th.

House

Hey, well it has been a while since I have posted. It looks like things might be this way from now on. I am still having a good time. Want to see where I live? Here ya go!

There she is. It´s an unwritten law that everyone in the jungle has to have a hammock. It´s our version of the lay-z-boy.

This is the view from the front door/hammock. That road is what they call a freeway around here.


Here we are inside. Mosquito net is important now that the rainy season has started. I have more pics, but it is taking about 10 minutes per pic to load. I hope you get the idea. Here´s a quick rundown of recent highlights:

• I now have electricity in my home.


• There was a massive tarantula in my house


• The communities are stoked on the tourism idea for Salinas. We are almost done planning the first fase. When we are done with that, we are going to present it to the Municipality to hopefully get funding.


• I spent a day planting the sacred maize (corn) with Ramiro and friends using just a hand sewn bag full of seeds and a machete-sharpened stick. The same way the Maya have been doing it for thousands of years.


• Went to a Mayan ceremony at the house of Qawa Mariano. We got to his house at about 8pm and didn´t make it home until 3am. The idea was thanking mother earth and our ancestors for all they have provided for us and to bless Mariano´s recently planted corn crop. I´ll try to post some pictures of that in the future.

That´s all for now. I hope all is well with you. And as we say in q´eqchí, owe chi waak (i´m going to eat)

Teaching

5/12/2008

As you know, my official job here is to develop community ecotourism projects. To put it into as few words as possible, it has been challenging, fun, and rewarding so far. I dig it, but it definitely leaves time for me to do other things. In my free time, I mostly find myself hanging out with kids teaching them stuff they have never seen before that back in the States is so normal. For example, twice a week I go to the elementary school and give English class for a half hour. At the end of each class, I put a song on the radio with the lyrics on the chalk board. So far, they enjoyed the song by this strange group called the Beatles the most.

My other teaching endeavor has been baseball. It started when I met a man passing through my town who is from the Dominican Republic. When he told me where he was from, I immediately took that as a chance to talk baseball. I also took advantage of that when I met a doctor from Cuba. Anyway, after about a half hour of talking about the pros, he started telling me how all kids in the Dominican grow up playing the game even though most don´t have baseballs, bats, gloves, bases, or even fields.

“Pero la única cosa que se necesita es amor para el juego. Así se encuentra maneras para jugar” he told me. “But the only thing you need is love for the game. That´s how you find ways to play.”

Well, of course after he said that, I was convinced I was going to teach the kids of this town. We started with the basics of how to hit. I took the handle off my broom while the 3 youngest boys of my host family rounded up all the bad oranges that fell from the trees in our backyard. I showed them how to stand and hold the bat, and they got a feel for their swing until all the oranges ended up squashed.

I wasn´t totally sure they liked it, but the next day changed my mind. Without me even mentioning baseball, the youngest kid (Hector) approached me and told me he thought our bat was too heavy and that we were all going to get new ones. I didn´t really get it at first, but then he told me he knows the perfect wood in the jungle that is light, strong and straight. So, we ventured into the rainforest and the four of us picked up sticks that were going to be our new bats. After we carved them down with a machete, we were ready for batting practice. I have a video of what that looks like, but I will put that up when I find a faster connection.

They did that for quite a while and got to where they weren´t spinning in circles every time they took a swing. When they got bored of tossing stuff onto the roof, the kids told me they wanted to play this game for real. So, we headed to the soccer field where I drew out a diamond and taught them the basics of the rules. We had enough to fill one team, so we played sandlot style for a couple hours. It was a success!

Apparently word got out about this game that did not involve a whole lot of running because the next day, our numbers doubled. We played a full 9 inning baseball game. We lost 28-22, but I was smiling the whole time.

Meal Time

Written 5/11/08

One thing that I have consistently been dreaming of since I arrived to my site is food. Allow me to explain. For breakfast and dinner everyday, I have eggs, black beans and tortillas. 9 times out of 10, lunch is a hunk of chicken tossed into some boiling soup. Oh, and don´t forget the tortillas. That meal goes perfect with the 90-something degree heat and 100% humidity we have been experiencing every afternoon. I usually don´t start off sweating at lunch time, but afterwards I look like I just dumped the bowl onto me instead of into me. I´m not complaining, I am just trying to give you a feel for what life is like. Eating is no longer a changing, exciting time of the day, it´s just what we do to take away the hunger.

Don´t feel bad either. There are a few reasons for this. One, they think we´re weird because we don´t eat tortillas with every meal. Also, there are tons of crazy tropical fruits that just grow naturally all over the place. It seems like anytime I go walking with a kid somewhere, our original mission gets changed when the kid spots a tree that has some fruit in it. We then spend the next few minutes either climbing said tree, or chucking whatever sticks nearby to knock down the fruit. After eating our earnings, we continue what we originally set out to do.

I still like beans, eggs and tortillas. We shall see if that hold true in a couple years.

My Roommates

Written April 21st:

Although there aren´t any humans living in my place with me, there are plenty of other things. Here are a couple examples of creatures that I have seen in my room during the three weeks that I´ve been here.

I don´t know what this guy is called, but he only comes out at night. He´s pretty easy to spot because when there are no lights on him he looks…

…like this. There are actually a few types of bugs I have seen here that light up. The coolest one I´ve seen is this little bug that hangs out in the tops of the trees and emits sporadic, but very bright flashes of light. The first time I saw that happen, I asked the closest person to me how it was possible that there was lightning when there were no clouds or even signs of a storm. She made me feel better when she said it was just a bug. Anyway, you get the idea of how bright it is.

This is one of the types of toad that has made it into my house. It´s a little funny to walk around at night without a light because you can hear them hop away from you if you get too close. Then you have to turn on the light to make sure you do not step on them.

So far, I´ve only mentioned the fun things that make it inside. There are way more things that aren´t fun that come in.

Like this beast. Every time I see a scorpion, I think of that show Battlebots. Remember? It was when people would build remote-controlled robots and then put them in a cage to bash each other up. I think it´s because scorpions to me look like they were made to just tear things apart.
That´s everything I have been able to take pictures of. This doesn´t include the spiders, cockroaches, fleas, millipedes, dogs, chickens, ducks, and flying friends that have ventured into my home. Sometimes, when I feel something biting me, I look first before killing it to see what it is. Sure enough, every now and then it´s some bug I have never seen before. Good thing Peace Corps gave me all those vaccinations.

Rio Icbolay

Here are some pics of another tourist attraction I will get to be working with. The people of the town Rocja' Pomtila' live on the Rio Icbolay. They take you upstream for 45 minutes until you get to the natural springs where the river is born. I had this weird feeling like I had done this trip before for about the first 10 minutes and I didn't know why. Then I realized it was because it's a lot like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. To the pictures!

Hey Babs, here is a picture of me. I hope this is enough evidence that I still look the same. That is Roberto our tourguide in the front of the boat.

That´s Don Ramiro in the foreground. He is my counterpart and a good guy. Felipe is driving the boat. I have to assume he´s a good guy because he doesn´t speak Spanish and I don´t speak Q´eqchi.

The tour ends where the river begins. That´s me sticking my head into one of the spring where water shoots out. It felt good.

I convinced Ramiro to do the same, but in a different spring.

I really like this place. It is pretty.

And lastly, here is a video of some of the waterfalls. I am excited to work with these people at this place. I hope you can see why.

Names

Written April 4th (thanks seiya):
I have a lot of names here. I feel people of Latin decent are given a hard time in the States because it seems they have loads of them. They only have 4, 2 of which are given. The other 2 are inherited. One is from Dad and the other from Mom. I´ll use my old host family as an example. Dad is Mario Efrain Perez Rodriguez. Mom is Zonia Yolanda Quezada Ramirez. A daughter of their´s is Sheila Vanesa Perez Quezada. Get it? Just take the first last name from each parent, dad´s goes first. Sometimes you run into a kid with a last name like Lopez Lopez and it makes you wonder.
Ok, now that´s clear we can go back to my names. The Peace Corps folk are calling me Tigo (pronounced tee-go) or Tigo Ted due to the backpack I wear around town. It was given to me as a thank you by the people that run the Tigo phone company after I bought one of their brand new cellular telephones. When I introduce myself to a Guatemalan, I tell them both my first and middle name (Ted Sebastian) because quite a few of them have a hard time with the name Ted. As if that weren´t enough, the people who only speak Q´eqchi´ have a hard time saying both Ted and Sebastian, so their substitute for the common Spanish name Sebastian is Bex (pronounced Besh). So the next time you see me, feel free to call me any combination of those names and I´ll probably respond.

Settling in

Written April 2nd 2008
I made it to my site. So far, everything is great. I am just having a hard time believing that I will actually be living here for the next two years. In short, life is waaaay different. Too many things have already happened for me to tell, so here is one story that I think is a little funny. My little house (which you´ll see in a minute) was basically an empty room, so I decided to build a table and shelves using some extra wood Ramiro told me I could use. The second youngest of his ten kids, Julio, decided to help. Throughout the process of building this table, several other kids showed up and were intrigued to see this goofy white guy cutting up wood. When it came time to connect the legs to the table, I realized I didn´t have enough nails. I told Julio to tell the other kids if they wanted to come with me to the tienda to buy some more, I´d be happy to have the company. He then mumbled something in Q`eqchi` and three of the 5 kids present raised their hands excitedly signifying they were coming along. About 100 yards into our 200 yard walk, I realized all of them were walking behind me. When I turned around to see if I was moving to fast, I noticed that my gang of 3 had doubled to 6 and they were following me in a single-file line. I giggled at the site, but I didn´t question it. I heard one kid use the word “mex” (table) in a sentence to another kid, so I figured everybody knew what our mission was. By the time we made it to the tienda, we were up to 8. I bought the nails and one of the kids who spoke Spanish said we should take the back way home. I agreed happily, because that is what you do here. When we passed by the mayor´s office, I pre-empted the obvious question by telling him that my team of carpenters was following me to help me finish my table. He laughed like the jolly man that he is. By the time we made it back home, there were 12 kids following me in a single-file line. They all stood and watched (some tried to help) as I finished my masterpiece of a table. Afterwards, we knocked down some coconuts and drank them dry to celebrate a job well done.

I took a video of where I will be living, but the connection here is too slow to upload it. I'll take some pictures and post them in the near future.

I like it here, you should come check it out.

Last week in San Lucas

I move to my site in a couple days. I am excited, but of course that comes with some sadness. I have made some good buddies here in San Lucas and I really enjoy my current host family. Here is a quick list of things I will miss about this town:

• playing basketball
• hearing my host family shout random bad words in English just to make me laugh
• bread
• internet
• the other trainees that are now my friends
• being able to speak Spanish to anybody I want

Leaving those may be sad, but I have a whole new set of challenges ahead I am ready to face.

Tomorrow we go to the ambassador´s house to swear in as official volunteers. That means I get to wear that tie I brought.

Remember that Mayan language I get to learn? I had my first class yesterday. The 5 others and I spent a good chunk of the class laughing at these ridiculous noises we are expected to make. We left with soar throats due to said noises. Let me give some examples

• Ma sa´ leech´ool laa´ex = how are you guys?
• Sa´ qach´ool laa´o = we are good
• B´ar wank eb li china us ixq = where are the beautiful women?
• Sa´ che´= in a tree

Right now it looks just about as foreign to me as it does to you. I´ll let you know in two years if I figure it out.

Site Visit

Ok everybody, I made it back from my site visit. What a place. The people are great, the parks are incredible, and the heat and living conditions are bearable. Instead of boring you all with words, let us enhance this presentation with pictures. Here we go:

This is one of the lagunas in the municipal park Salinas Nueve Cerros. It is one of the parks that I will be helping to develop and then market. I didnt go swimming in it because it has...

a bunch of these guys. Ya, that is a crocodile. The first day in the park I also saw howler monkeys, turtles, a barba amarrilla (one of the most venomous snakes in the world), and countless species of plants, bugs (I guess I didnt get to see a lot of bugs, they were mostly just biting me), and birds.

This is what the houses are in Santa Lucia, where I will be living. I took this picture from the soccer field. The woman on the right is sewing a bag to sell. Their backyard is pure tropical rainforest and the border of the national park Laguna Lachua, another park I will be working with. Nobody really speaks Spanish in Santa Lucia except for the family I will be living with for the first three months. Everyone speaks Qechi, a Mayan language that I am going to learn. The house I am going to stay in doesnt look like this either. It is the only one in town made of cement. I am hoping that after those three months, I might be able to convince them to build me a place like the one in the picture.

Another attraction to Salinas Nueve Cerros. All that white stuff is salt. There is a natural salt water spring that the ancient Maya used. Throughout the park, you can find big pots buried in the ground that they would use to extract the salt and then go trade it amongst other Maya or even the Inca in South America. The dude in the foreground is Jose Antonio or just Tono for short. He is the head of Project Lachua, the govenment organization in charge of the Eco-region Lachua. The guy on the left is Elman. He is in charge of the farmland that is also within the park. The next guy is Don Adolfo, an agricultural engineer that was in for the week to see how the crops are doing. Next to him is Don Manual, the guy that knows everything there is to know about Salinas. I guess that is what happens when you take care of a place everyday for 10 years. He is also my next door neighbor in Santa Lucia. Don Ramiro, my work counterpart/host dad is not pictured because he had some other work to tend to that day. I just felt I had to mention him because he is a splendid man and I spent most of the week with him.

Don Manu again. That mound behind him is actually a Mayan tomb. There are a bunch of them around Salinas, some of which have been excavated and you can crawl into them. It is a little creepy, but you feel something when you are sitting inside.

This is just some of the stuff I saw last week, and there is still loads I have yet to see in the region. As you can see, it has a ton of potential for tourism. The challenge is going to be including the communities in that development so that they will care for these places in the future. I am counting the days until I get to move there for good at the end of the month.

Off to the Beautiful Boonies

They told me where I am going yesterday. Aldea Santa Lucia Lachua. Population 325. Located in the tropical rainforest in the northwest of the department Alta Verapaz, near the Mexican border. 7 km from the national park Laguna Lachua. I will have electricity, but will have to use their methods of catching rainwater. The nearest town with a market is about 20km away. I will be working in and with several associations including the national park, a municipal park, and a couple rivers. My main responsibility will be developing the whole ecotouristic (is that a word in English?) region and promoting it. They tell me the place is beautiful, and the pictures I have seen on Google confirm it. I am beyond excited for the "work" ahead.

There will be monkeys and jaguars! Lots of them! All over the place!

On Monday I will meet my counterpart (host country national that I will be working with) and then we will be off to the site for the rest of the week. Once there, I will find a place to live and get a quick feel for the area. I move there for good at the end of the month.

We won our basketball game on sunday. I fouled out early in the 4th quarter. Something tells me life in the jungle is gonna be a little different...

Fotos and Softball

The title says it. It will only let me load 5 pictures per blog entry:

El Salto de Chilasco. The tallest in Central America.

The main lookout for the waterfall. You can see why it is called cloud forrest.

A view from inside a church overlooking San Cristobal

The bottom step of a Mayan temple currently under excavation

Teaching folks about tourism

Cool, cool stuff. On a side note, yesterday was awesome. I got asked to play on a fast-pitch softball team by a guy who is a friend of my host family who also used to be on Guatemala’s national baseball team. Although I have been to the batting cages in recent years, I don’t think I had faced live pitching since like 8th grade. I was nervous, but I figured what the hell. That feeling intensified a bit when they told me I was batting lead-off. They must have seen something in the combination of my way-too-small uniform and soccer cleats. Turns out I had nothing to be nervous about. The pitching was equivalent to the medium setting at the batting cages in Boomers. Big, juicy meatballs that were just fast enough to be straight and right down the middle. I led the game off with a triple off the top of the wall. In our double-header, I failed to make it on base once in my eight at- bats. I told the team that I am only going to be in town for another month due to my job. They said depending on how far away they send me, they would be willing to pay for my trip to make it to the games and that I could stay at any one of their houses. I told them that would be great.

If this rain lets up, I have a basketball game at 6 tonight.
I find out where I will be for the next 2 years tomorrow. I am a little nervous about it.

It has been a while

Oh man, I have been busy. That is no excuse for the amount of time it has taken me to post this, but hey, here it is. Let me give you a quick update. I got back from that trip I mentioned and since taken another. Here is a quick list of things I have recently done:
· Seen Central America´s tallest waterfall and painted a visitor´s center in Chilascó
· Went tubing down a river and taught a local group of indigenous people about tourism in and around Chicamán
· Went to a sugar cane farm that has an old growth pristine cloud forest and Mayan ruins that are currently being excavated by archaeologists, then gave a diagnostic presentation to the land owner about it´s potential for tourism near Uspantán
· Took a tour of a coffee farm and worked with the owners to design a name and label for the coffee in Panyebar
· Went on Central America´s longest zip line (about 33 seconds) with a view of lake Atitlán, then worked with the brand new park rangers teaching them about how to run a successful park in Sana Clara La Laguna
· Found my way onto a local basketball team and scored 12 points in our 36-32 opening game (we won)

In other words, I am working and having fun while doing it. We find out on Monday what our permanent sites are. You know, the place where I am going to spend the next two years? If it is anything like what I have seen and learned the past couple months, those two years shall be quite the experience.

I´ll get some more pictures up soon.

Gone for a bit

Hello. Just wanted to let you know that I will be gone all next week so there will not be any updates for at least that amount of time. We are going all over the country to check out some ecotourism sites to get in some field based training, as they call it. Should be a good time.
Also, thanks to all of you who have e-mailed, left comments, called me at 2 in the morning or whatever. Your words are kind and keep me motivated. Keep ´em coming.

Fotos

Words are boring. Here are some accompanied by pictures.

This is the view I have every morning when I wait outside Giorgio´s place in our hometown of San Lucas. That volcano´s name is Agua.

The training center. Just like the Peace Corps Propaganda I got before I joined.

Senderos de Alux, the park where I am working. Grandma would say it´s purty.

meeting

Ok, so things are more exciting nowadays. Allow me to explain. It turns out I speak Spanish well enough that I don’t have to take any more classes. This means I have several days of the week where I get to plan out my training. It is great because I am already getting a better taste of what life is going to be like when I am assigned my site.

This past week, I met with el Licenciado Ingeniero Virgilio Borrayo. Everyone who has a college degree gets the title Licenciado (licensed) and is instantly given a ton of respect. I guess that is because less than 10% of Guatemalans who are old enough to have a college degree have one. Ingeniero just means engineer. Anyway, Virgilio had the honor of meeting with Licenciados Joseph ( me), Sotirou (my buddy Giorgio), and Boggiss (my other friend/ecotourism worker). He is the the boss of the ecological park near and run by the municipality ofSan Lucas. The park is called Parque Ecologico Senderos de Alux. We met to see if there was some stuff we could work together on to help out the park. He was very excited about the possibilities and we scheduled another meeting for this Tuesday. At that time, we plan to meet at the park to exchange ideas. We have already been up there and saw about half the park. It is beautiful. It has lots of trails that are in good shape, a bbq area with a playground, and several lookouts with sweet views of Guatemala City. From what I have seen, the park is in good shape. It just needs some more visitors.

That is where we come in. We are going to come up with a marketing plan. The idea is to work with Virgilio and the park rangers together so we can combine ideas and so they can continue the plan after we leave here in two months. Right now, it seems like it might succeed, but I have learned that working in development in the developing world can be quite frustrating. We shall see. If the idea doesn’t catch on with the locals, we will be spending more time in the park learning the plant and animal life, how the park functions, and carrying out various maintenance/improvement projects. Either way, I will be getting some good experience.
Ill let you know how it goes.

Sorry no pictures or videos, this computer is too slow.

Times this week someone pointed at me and made some sort of motion demonstrating they thought I was tall: 3

The City and a Vidi

I went to Guatemala City with my Spanish class and teacher this week. The purpose of the trip was to check out the US Embassy and the hospital we would have to go to in case anything bad was to happen. What a thrill that was. Not. In order to make the day more interesting, we decided to do as much touristy things as we could. That included touring the presidential palace, the central market, INGUAT (Guatemalan institute of tourism) headquarters, and an enjoyable lunch in the city´s central park. I was pleasantly surprised by all of it. It wasn’t nearly as dangerous as all the Peace Corps employees are making out to be. Pati, our teacher, was freaked out the entire day that we were going to get beaten and/or robbed. That prompted a new nickname for her that she gladly accepted, PreocuPati. Preocupada is the word for worried, so it works out quite nice. Don´t fret Babs, if I even travel to the city without Peace Corps permission, I´ll get kicked out. I won´t be doing that any time soon. Twas a good day in the city.

Here´s a quick video of my little host sister. She wrote out a whole speach to the fam. She practiced it several times before she let me tape it. This is the result.

translation: hello, my name is sheila vanesa perez. My dad´s name is Mario Perez. My mom´s name is Sonia Yolanda Quezada. I have a very beautiful family. I congratulate you for the son you have. He is very good and friendly. I hope that you have a good day and that you do everything that you have to get done.
I then ask don Mario what he thinks of that, to which he replies “esta bien”. Sheila then gets upset because she hasn’t said anything to Katie yet. I tell her now´s the time so she says: Hello Katie, your brother talks about you a lot. I think he loves you a lot. He says he loves you, your mom, and your dad the most in the world. I congratulate you for the brother that you have. God bless you. Goodbye.
Then I ask my host mom what she thinks of the message and she gets embarrassed. Good stuff.

Field Trip

Hello people. Wow, it has been over a week since I last posted. They are keeping us pretty busy with all that training stuff. Some pretty neat things have happened this week. Here is one of them.

As you may or may not know, I am here with a job working in ecotourism. With that being said, the 9 other folks who are here for that same job and I took a field trip with our technical advisor and boss this past Friday. We visited a current volunteer who is working in ecotourism to check out his site. He lives in a town that sits at the base of the active volcano Pacaya. The volcano and surrounding area are part of a national park that he is working to make better. It was a nice reality check for what a volunteer experiences here. So far, I have felt pretty pampered for a Peace Corps volunteer and he provided us with some of the frustrations that we will more than likely encounter. The park was beautiful, but definitely has room for improvement.

On our way back, we stopped by a lake to see some of the environmental devastation Guaguatemala has encountered. The lake we visited, Amatitlan, is the 4th largest lake in the country and is on a path to destruction. It turns out that a very large number of the country´s major manufacturing companies have been using it as a dump. This practice has led to the color you see in these photos.

That is blue-green algae and it has killed almost everything in the lake. I thought it was a little ironic that all the nasty-ness that is going into the lake could create such a splendid color green. It reminded me of the impressive sunsets we have back at home caused by all the smog. Anyway, that is just one example of how Guamania´s natural beauty isn´t being treated properly.

Whoa, I was planning on writing about more, but I need to go eat dinner. Expect something more soon.

Times I hit my head this week in this country of short people: 5

Training

I have been here in Guatebuena for just about a week now and things are going well. Peace Corps is keeping us busy everyday with training, whether it is technical, language or cultural. I have been getting home pretty tired. So far, when I get home, I just eat, hang out with the fam, and then go to bed at about 10. The town I live in is called San Lucas Sacatepequez and is almost in the middle in between Guatemala City and Antigua for those of you who have a map. It's a decent sized town at about 7000ft above sea level. It has a soccer field and a basketball court in the middle and is one of the larger training sites. I guess I should explain what training is all about.
Here it is. There are 36 total folks that got here the same time as me that are what they call trainees. We were placed into groups according to our Spanish ability and job title. We were then placed into training sites that are near by the training center. As I said earlier, I live in San Lucas with one other dude. Babs, his name is Giorgio and he´s from Arizona. Good Guy. His place is about a 5 minute walk from mine. Anyway, San Lucas is about a 10 minute bus ride from the training center in Santa Lucia. There, we have lots of classes regarding health, safety, Spanish, job training, blah blah blah. It is a lot of time in class, but I think it will help when it comes time for me to move to my actual site. After 3 months of training, we will be sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers and each person will be placed in a different site, most likely pretty far from the training center, for 2 years. That is about as brief as I can be to describe training.
So ya, San Lucas is my home for the next three months and I will have easy access to internet for that time. After this, I don´t know what my amenities will be like, so I´ll take advantage while I can.

My Family and House

In just about a week here, I am very encouraged by my host family. Don Mario is a teacher and Doña Yoli has a barber shop. They have 3 girls that are 25, 23, and 10, respectively. All the kids are students. Don't get any ideas, I don't think I'll be marrying any of them any time soon. The whole family seems to love to have fun, but is also willing to help make their pueblo a better place. The first thing I did with Doña Yoli and Sheila, the youngest girl, was play a joke on our next door neighbor. She also happens to be Don Mario´s mom. Her fence reaches maybe as high as my shoulder, which is way taller than both Yoli and Sheila, maybe put together. Anyway, they stood next to me, whispering things for me to say to her over the fence. After about a minute or so of me trying to convince this old lady that I was going to live with her, my host mom and sis laughed and the joke was over. Later on, the ladies left the house and Don Mario and I talked for a couple hours sharing ideas of how to make San Lucas a better place. I am going to be pretty busy the three months I live here, but hopefully I will get to actually do some of the stuff we talked about.

Here is a quick video of my house. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it is. I haven´t taken any pictures of the host fam yet, but those will be soon.

Testing

Ok then. Just bought a memory card adaptor thang so I don't have to haul my camera around when I want to post fotos online. Gonna see if it works. First one should be of some stuff in a room. Second one should be me in a room.

Yippee! Looks like I can also post videos. Let's check it out.

Looks like it works. Who knows if I can actually do this stuff in Guamania, but I shall try.

Ok, I leave in a day and I am feeling all those feelings you would expect. To my family and friends: thank you and I love you. I am excited to tell you all what is happening with me and I would love to hear updates on what you are doing. You can do that through email (tedelgringo@gmail.com), facebook, snail mail (i'll let you know how to do that when I find out), or getting your ass down to Guadalamania. We'll be in touch, and seriously, a very happy new year to you and yours.