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.