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.