Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Week 4: Mejor

The battle with the bed bugs continues, but I think the humans are winning. Both of my moms have been really helpful: Guate-mom has been helping me coat my room in insecticide, and US-mom has sent me an essentially-hermetic mattress cover. The latter will be helpful in case they're not all killed by the time it actually arrives in the mail.

I have a feeling there are still a couple left, because I got a few new bites two nights ago. Since then I've reinspected the mattresses, sheets and bed frame and sprayed all over the place, and it has been quiet. But I have yet to actually find one of the f'ers, so it is difficult to say if they've done died or are just hiding out digesting their last blood meal. Regardless, thanks for all the well-wishes concerning the chinches! Hopefully next week I'll have good news to report.

Bedbugs aside, last week was fairly quiet. On Thursday we said goodbye to a whole slew of folks at the school dinner, which was chicken curry this time. As I'd hoped, it was quite tasty. Bonus: it was supplemented by rum drinks made with actual coconuts. Here's a shot of Katy preparing one (for some reason I've only taken pictures of her while she's wielding a machete).

Katy with her machete, as usual

Other than that, last week and weekend consisted of learning the future tenses with my teacher Ulises; studying at local coffee shops with Merete, my favorite Norwegian (see picture below); and going out dancing with new and old friends.

Verb flashcards

Yesterday the power was out at our house for the whole day, so we prepared tacos by candlelight. Here's a shot of daughters #3 & #4, Jessiecka & Cathy, as well as my Guate-mom Lucrecia.

Jessiecka, Cathy & Lucretia

Tacos in Guatemala, and seemingly everywhere else besides Taco Bell/the United States, consist of a 3" soft corn tortilla with a bit of meat, pico de gallo, salsa (usually a salsa called chirmol in this region), and a touch of lime on top. They're really tasty.

My Guate-mom cooks three meals a day for the family and me, and I'm really enjoying the "comida tipica". It is true that many meals consist of some combination of black beans, tortilla, eggs, and salsa, but there's a surprising amount of variation and supplementation, and I haven't been bored. Nor haven't I really started eating food from the street vendors, and that's a whole other world of culinary goodness (and traveler's diarrhea). I will be posting more on this topic in the near future.

And that's that. Next week's post should be more interesting, since this weekend Merete and I are going to Chichicastenango. "Chichi" has the largest indigenous mercado in Guatemala, so it is the place to go if you're interested in buying anything handmade.

4 comments:

  1. Apparently, you're not the only one being infested: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100818/us_time/08599201150900

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  2. Oh man, those sound like tenacious little devils! Love your pics! When you come back from Guatemala, you are going to have to do some teaching, I think.

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  3. Shannon: ugh, gross. In fighting these guys I've read a lot of articles like that; it sounds like bedbugs are becoming a big problem back home. Take Jesse's comment in the previous post for example (hotels I'd heard about, but movie theaters? Yuck.) No me gusta.

    Kara: teaching on what? :)

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  4. In the movie theater I had maybe a little sense of things crawling, but I really didn't see/feel anything.

    Best thing for the itch is to put the bite under water that is hot as you can stand. The itch will go away almost instantly and stay away for hours.

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