Week 8 & 9: Celebrations

Well these two weeks positively flew by. Independence week in Xela was about as fun and crazy as I expected it to be: more parades than I could shake a stick at and lots of good times with friends. Here's a brief summary:

On Tuesday night most of the city gathered in Parque Central or the Minerva Temple to listen to music and watch a few nighttime parades, but it seems mostly people went to Parque Central to stand around and stare at the groups of gringos who were drunk and/or dancing. My group definitely was an "and".



Wednesday we didn't have classes, but we gathered at the school anyway to BBQ, study, play round-the-world ping pong, and watch movies. Tasty and fun.

Thursday was class and fair. Fair = insane, but really, a lot like any fair anywhere else in the world: tons of tasty, greasy food, really expensive games that /seem/ easy, vendors vending all kinds of crappy merchandise, and carnival rides. Despite mostly being the same rides you can get on in the States, the rides were probably the most memorable. Take, for example, the Ferris Wheel. People, this thing was /scary/. And this is coming from someone who has spent countless summers (and hundreds of dollars) at Cedar Point, the most awesome roller coaster park on the planet. Here's why: 1. two person seats made of old, bendy wood that have seen a bit too much exposure to Guatemala's rains; 2. the safety bar and pin were a gate of two metal tubes held in place by a large nail bent in half; 3. the sucker spun /fast/. Like, airborne at the top, fast.




Friday and Saturday were "travel days", which is a nice way of saying that I spent around 30 hours on a shuttle or plane, or in the airport attempting to sleep. But I was on my way to see Caleb, so it was well worth it. After I met up with him on Saturday, then commenced a whirlwind week of Canadian-ness. The Canadian Rockies, I am sorry to say to my Colorado friends, trounce the Colorado ones. Banff and Jasper National Parks are simply gorgeous. The birch and aspen were turning in the park during our trip too, so every vista was a bit more stunning than usual.

We stayed for a few days in Lake Louise,





then headed north to Jasper,



and west to Golden, where we got in some good trail runs, tramped around on mountains, saw a ton of glaciers, waded in some natural hot springs, and drank a lot of Canadian beer. All-in-all, my Canadian vacation went entirely too quickly, and having spent that time with Caleb reminded me of how good I have it with him. It was hard saying goodbye at the airport, but at least this time it will "only" be 2.5 months until I see him again. Next time he's coming to visit me in Guatemala!

Week 8: Great expectations

I learned the perfect tense last week, which brings the Spanish verb tense count up to ten. To use an English verb as an example, ten verb tenses is the equivalent of saying the following:

I learn, I am learning, I'm going to learn, I will learn, I used to learn, I learned, I have learned, I had learned, I will be learning, and the command, "Learn!"

I still have the subjunctive and the conditional to go, which are kind of tough from what I've heard. But for the most part, the tenses I know now are more than enough to get my point across. What is still lacking is the vocabulary and the speed; I speak very simply and about as slowly as someone with Broca's aphasia.

****

Friday was Cathy's birthday. She is one of my host sisters, and she turned 22. In typical Guatemalan style, we lit off fireworks in front of the house at 6am, and that night she had her friends over to the house for a party. Dinner was chorizo tacos. Here's the preparation: a flat, floppy fried corn tortilla with about a tablespoon of ground chorizo, topped with pico de gallo, diced cucumber and onion, salsa de aguacate (avocado sauce), salsa verde (a spicy tomatillo-based green salsa), and chirmol (another spicy salsa made from charred chile zambos). They are served three to a plate, and are super tasty. About forty people came, so the preparation was pretty extensive, e.g. my mom cooked up fifteen pounds of chorizo, and fried about 150 tortillas on the plancha.



Other than perhaps the fireworks and the food, the party wasn't much different from other birthday parties I've attended. Perhaps the biggest difference was that presents aren't opened at the party; kind of like a wedding, they're usually opened the morning after.

In other news, this week is going to be crazy. It is Independence Week, so there are parades, pageants, fairs, and concerts galore. The big days are tomorrow and Wednesday. Independence Day is Wednesday, but on Independence Eve there's a free concert with bands playing everything and everyone drinking everything. At midnight the mayor gives a long speech called the "grito de independencia", and afterward everyone continues drinking. To aid in the latter, the bars remain open all night long. The next day most of the city, probably hung over, heads to the fairgrounds. We don't have class that day, so I will probably sleep in and spend the day studying (our school is planning on going to the fair on Thursday).

Friday is a big day too, because I'll be heading to the airport that day. The airport, you say? Yes, the airport. Because...strangely, crazily, ridiculously enough, I'm flying to Canada to spend a week with Caleb!

What the heck, right? Well, it turns out one of his papers was accepted at a conference in Lake Louise. He emailed me a couple days ago saying that, if I wanted to, he'd help pay for the ticket from Guatemala to Calgary, which would make it cheaper than than paying for a week of class at Pop Wuj. He'd cover the car and hotel, so I'd just have to pay for food. How could I say no?

We'll be at this hotel for four days, and probably driving around Banff trail running, climbing, and hiking for two days before and two days after.

This trip is quite serendipitous, because I was planning on taking time off during that week, anyway; I had decided that I needed a break from continually cramming in new Spanish grammar and vocabulary, and needed to take a week to organize things in my head and cement what Spanish I had learned. So I'll still be doing that, but I'll just be in Canada, with my boyfriend, whom I haven't seen in 3.5 months. FYI, when I get back I'll still have the same family and the same teacher.

I'm looking forward to this week :)

Week 7: Fiestas & Mudslides

Last Tuesday was Merete's birthday, so we ate cake and attempted to sing "Happy Birthday" in Spanish at the school. Then later in the evening everyone went out to a tapas bar and drank a whole lot of wine. Unfortunately (sorry, Merete!) I got absolutely zero good pictures of either event. Wednesday I went with a group of folks and played a bit of indoor soccer, and was sore for the next three days.

On Thursday we went up to a village in which our school had previously been very active with social projects. Over the last ten years Pop Wuj has built dozens of stoves there, given many children scholarships to attend primary school, and reforested some of the surrounding hills. So as a token of the village's gratitude, each year during the first harvest of elote they have a small fiesta for Pop Wuj. This basically means that once a year most of the school hops in a shuttle, heads up to the village, and everyone stuffs their face silly with super fresh and delicious sweet corn served up by the community leader's family. It was easily be best corn I've ever had.

It may look like plain ol' corn on the cob, but no, it is elote, and it is much more delicious. It is usually prepared in one of two ways: the more sane way is to squeeze some fresh lime juice onto the cob, sprinkle it with salt, and nibble off individual kernels. The crazier way, and hence why this particular preparation is called "elote loco", is to paint the ear of corn with stripes of mayo, ketchup, and picante sauce, and then garnish with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Eating elote this way is ultimately a bit sloppier (and more fun). I, of course, prefer the crazy corn method. Here's a photo of Merete and Shuvani showing off their cobs:




I and most folks ate three cobs of corn, and were completely, totally stuffed afterward. But my teacher Ulises and Shuvani, one of the students here, got into a corn-eating contest. They tied by eating /seven/ cobs of corn. Seven! I'm sure Kobayashi could have eaten ten times as much, but for us mere mortals it was quite impressive watching those two go at it.

Also, the village kids that ate elote with us were extremely photogenic. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of them:



and



****

Last Thursday Merete, Tom, Shuvani, Amy, and I cooked for the school dinner, and it was delicious. We made a Norwegian fish stew accompanied by whole wheat garlic bread and buttered grean beans. Dessert was chocobananas and cookies. And of course there was a whole bunch of wine. One of the teachers informed us that, in his 20 years of teaching at Pop Wuj, our group was only the second to attempt a fish dish. Good job, us! We had a ton of stew, bread, and cookie dough left over too, so we had another dinner of fish stew on Friday night while watching a movie at the school.

The weekend itself was pretty tranquil. I studied a bunch in coffee shops with friends, watched Casino Royale at a movie cafe (also with friends), and went to the mall with Matt Percy and Tom. We went to see if any of us could find some pants and shoes, since all of us had packed light. We first went to a Kohls- or JC Penny's- sized store that sells off-brand clothing of surprisingly good quality at surprisingly cheap prices. After talking with my teacher about this store I learned that, because a lot of designer clothes in America are made in Guatemalan sweat shops, it is fairly easy for the employees of said sweatshops to work for, say, American Eagle by day, and after work to make the same pants in their homes and then sell them on the streets. If you become successful enough at doing this you can start your own company, say, American Goose, and start selling your product to stores like the one I visited on Saturday. So there were all kinds of hilarious brands at this store: New Navy, Hollistar, Tom Cruise, Fac'q Jeans, Aeropostal, etc. But in my opinion the most appropriate name of all was the name of the store: Carrion.

Unfortunately for me, all of the women's jeans were blinged to kingdom come with sequins and elaborate stitching. If I were to start wearing clear platform heels those jeans might start looking appropriate on me, but since I spend most of my day sitting I imagine all those glued-on gems would be pretty uncomfortable for my bottom. I couldn't find good shoes either. Matt did well, though: he got a pair of soccer shorts, a pair of Inside jeans, and orange and yellow Diadora indoor shoes, all for $40.

****

Despite having a dearth of pants and shoes, life is good. The foot fungus is dying and I haven't gotten any new chinche bites, although I was attacked by a flea a few days ago and am still itchy from that. Fleas also happen to be especially common here, perhaps because of the incredible numbers of stray dogs that live in Guatemala. So any family that has dogs or cats is bound to get fleas once in a while. Since my family has both, I make sure neither get into my room. That has worked well, but unfortunately I can't do much about the random flea that is hiding out in a cafe chair.

****

Some of you may have heard on the news about the mudslides in Guatemala last weekend. What happened was that we had a tropical depression sitting over Guatemala on Saturday and Sunday and got a /ton/ of rain. Unfortunately this caused multiple mudslides along several sections of the highways in this area. At least 40 people died in the slides, and dozens more are still missing. Sadly, most of the victims so far were volunteers who were trying to pull people from buses buried in mud from an initial highway mudslide, and then were caught in a second, larger collapse. The news stations down here don't do much (read: almost none at all) censoring, so watching the coverage of the disasters has been difficult, to say the least. Luckily the rain has let up a bit, so hopefully the recovery operation can resume again so families can receive a bit of closure.

The roads themselves are in pretty terrible condition because of dozens of smaller landslides that fell onto the highway; new students that arrived today said that the trip from Antigua to Xela, which normally takes 3.5 hours, took them 14 because of road conditions. This weekend I was planning on heading to the mercado at Chichicastenago, which is in the direction of Antigua, but it seems as though that isn't an option at this point.

****

Next week should be exciting: it is Guatemala's equivalent of Independence Day, and from what I've heard, Guatemalans may get more crazy about their independence than Americans do. I'm looking forward to it :)