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.