santa cecilia.

Aaahhhhh, where to begin. Perhaps with a small anecdote. Yes, I think that´s a swell idea. So I´m standing on the corner in Antigua waiting for the bus to head home, and a "gentleman" (yes, that´s in quotes for a reason) feels the need to ask me, "Hey baby! How you doin´ and how much?" Somewhat humorous I felt. It´s rather bizarre that the people who try to speak English to you here only say things like "I love you" or "Hey baby, how you doing?" Whatevs.

So, Sunday night I had a crash course in hand-washing clothes in the pila. Apparently my host mom is 5 months pregnant and her doc doesn´t want her doing laundry anymore. Fíjese que, that´s hilarious. She told me that I have quite the aptitude and was impressed by how fast I picked it up. Uhhh, ok. I may not have had to do my own laundry until college, but I feel that I am more than making up for it these days. It took me literally 15 minutes to wash just ONE pair of jeans...they´re the worst. Fortunately, there is a washing machine, but they say it doesn´t work well and just use it to wash sheets. Anyways. It´s weird to wash your clothes with this kind of bar soap, and they don´t ever really smell fresh and clean the way that they do when they come out of the dryer. I miss that smell.

I experienced my first bit of camioneta trouble this past weekend on Saturday. A group of us (2 from Dueñas, 3 from Pastores, and 3 from San Luis Las Carretas) went to Zaragosa, Chimaltenango to visit the one and only Grant P-M. Grant, if you´re reading this, thanks again! We had a ball. But first we had bus trouble. We´re in the middle of the road between Pastores and Parramos, about 15 minutes outside of Antigua when the bus stops and then just doesn´t go anywhere. Keep in mind that I´m sharing the bench with 2 other full grown adults, and there´s a chapino ass in my face too. To put it mildly, it was a rather full camioneta. After about 20 minutes of just sitting there, people start getting off in hopes that another bus will come by and we might be able to hop on. Disembark. A bus comes by, and for the FIRST time I´ve seen in 2 months, doesn´t stop because it was full. Usually they don´t give a hoot if everyone is standing on each other. After about 15 minutes of hanging around outside the bus, it turns back on and there´s a mad dash for the back door. Fortunately we all made it in through the door before it took off running with the door swinging in the wind. Apparently all fixed and we made it to Chimal without further incident. If any of you reading this come to visit me, we are NOT going to be visiting Chimal. It is a rather nasty city that is really just good for changing buses to get to the antiplano of the Western Highlands of Guatemala. We had a lovely rest of the day shooting the breeze and eating Grant´s homemade hummus. Snazzy.

I actually managed to go riding yesterday morning, which was delightful, despite the piss-poor weather. It was literally pouring, but we went out anyways. The people that own the stables are rather...eccentric...British ex-pats. It was lovely to ride a trained horse again, however. My swell friend Anna accompanied me, and was a great trooper even though she was soaking wet and somewhat confused. But if you know Anna, you know confusion isn´t an uncommon frame of mind for her :) There was an interesting point on the ride where Fred, the hubby, speaks up about how he thinks this country needs a good ole epidemic disease to wipe out some of the population growth. He continues by commenting on how he thought AIDS was going to do it, but it´s looking like it won´t be able to do the trick. Vaya. Too bad we´re here working to improve health and prevent disease...

We had a hilarious little language confusion in Spanish class the other day. One of the girls here in Dueñas with me is from Louisana. We were discussing animals in Spanish, because I didn´t know how to say quail or possum. Rafael, our Spanish teacher, starts talking about nutrias, these precious little animals that swim and some people even keep as pets in their pilas. Lauren´s jaw drops, because apparently there are nutrias in the States, and they´re nasty water rats that are kind of similar to possums. I have no clue. Rafael is talking about how beautiful nutrias are, and what great pets they can be. Us gringas continue to be ridiculously confused, but just accepting it. After all, possum meat is a delicacy here. We finally discover that nutria is the word here in Guatemala for otter. Yes, I would like to have an otter in my pila as a pet. No, I would not like to have a Lousiana nutria, EVER.

I feel normal again, but will be continuing to take horse-sized antibiotics 3 times a day for another two weeks. Whoo! Happy belated Father´s Day again to you, Daddy, and I hope everyone had fun at John´s last night. Wish I had been able to be there. Fam, please email me some new pictures of the one and only Libby Mae! We´re coming down to the wire here...I find out where I´m going forever on July 1. Cross your fingers I end up somewhere, I don´t know, whatever. I don´t even know what I want in a site anymore. It will all work out.

Muchos besos,
Marta

xoyita.

Ahhhh, the after effects of our field based training. What an...interesting...8 days. In a nutshell, we left from Antigua on Saturday for San Antonio Ilotenango, Quiché. Wednesday morning we left San Antonio for San Martín Sacatepequez, Quetzaltenango. Returned to our training towns on Sunday.

We did everything from give charlas about lombrices (worms) to an HIV/AIDS workshop to cooking class with indigenous women and children to playing basketball in the muni with little kids to visit the "slaughterhouse" of the towns, etc. It was a really full and interesting week, but I feel like I kind of missed out on a lot of it because I felt horrible the second half of the week. Apparently, I have amoebas and a bacterial infection, and had NO energy. Fortunately, as of today, I´m feeling tons better. For being on 4 different antibiotics, I´d better be feeling better. I had to go to the hospital Friday night to figure out what was wrong with me, and I SO wanted to be in the States at one of the two rehearsal dinners that were happening that night. I have no idea if they´re reading this, but huge congrats to Richard/Gwendolyn and Amanda/Ben...I´m so sad I had to miss your weddings! The one upside of Saturday is that after we finished all our work of the week, we went to the Fuentes Georginas near Zunil, in Xela (same thing as Quetzaltenango). They were FANTASTIC. I have pictures somewhere on Facebook. I hadn´t ever been to hot springs before, so it was a major treat.

We´re (my town) giving an HIV/AIDS workshop here at some point in the next week or so, the details are still being hammered out. Current volunteers came in from their sites to help us out with the planning this past Mon/Tues/Wed which was incredibly helpful, and it´s also nice to get to know some volunteers outside our loony group of trainees.

I feel like this is a really boring update without my fav brand of dry humor, but I guess I had trouble finding sarcasm when I felt so crummy. This morning, we met our Spanish teacher, Rafael (Pastores, be jealous) and went to Jocotenango, a town just on the other side of Antigua. There is a "cultural center" there at this coffee finca called La Azotea, and we had a tour of the coffee-making process and some Mayan cultural education. Considering I didn´t drink coffee until 2 months ago, I didn´t know anything about it until this morning.

I´ve decided it will be hilariously ironic if I end up owning a horse in this country for transportation purposes (it´s really common) when I never was able to in the States because they´re so crazy expensive. However, that´s a long way off with lots of details to figure out, and quite possibly may never happen. Wooooo, I´m off for now. Time is starting to move FAST, and we find out where we´re going for the next 2 years in just over a week! Craziness. Keep the letters/packages/emails coming (the only ones NOT on my shit list are Mom/Dad, Rachael, and Lily W) as I´m really starting to miss celebrity gossip and idle chitchat from home.

Mere

Primorosa.

Buenas. I´m so tired! I´ve been working all week on this presentation for tomorrow afternoon. It´s essentially just about a 30 min ¨charla¨to middle school kids about why it´s a good idea to wash your hands, but in a fun and educational manner. I don´t know how teachers do it. I´ve been working and editing the same lesson plan for like three days.

This pastSaturday, we all met up in Santa Lucía for some kind of Mayan ceremony; I´m still not totally sure exactly what it was for. I learned that apparently because of my specific birthdate and year, I supposedly have tons of energy and share that and other attributes with Carlos Santana and Winston Churchill. Snazzy. For the afternoon, we met up in Antigua, surprise, surprise. It was really nice just to chill out because things are really starting to roll along. I spent about 5 hours on Sunday at Valhalla, the macadamia nut finca thats about 1 km from my town. I read almost all of Unaccustomed Earth...fantastic book. Couldn´t put it down. I got a funny text in the afternoon from our techníco de salud in our Puesto. Earlier in the week, we had been joking about going to happy hour on Sunday, but we all thought she was kidding. Nope.

On Monday, we switched Spanish teachers...so sad. Our town really misses Sandra, but Rafael is our new teacher and he´s pretty good too. I had my second language proficiency interview on Monday, and am apparently now at the level medio/medio. The only reason that´s a good thing is because you have to be at that level at least at the end of training to go out in the field.

I was on pins and needles for most of Tuesday because we were in Santa Lucía at the training center all day, and I was anxiously awaiting an email about Libby Mae! I´m so glad she´s here and Candace is doing well, too. And Aunt Kath, I know you´re reading this...I tried to call and text you to tell you happy birthday, but I couldn´t get it to go through!

Next week, us Rural Home Preventive Health (RHPH, or salud preventiva) trainees are going on field based training (FBT). Go look at a map, we´re going to Quiché and San Martín Sacatepequez (en Quetzaltenango). It´s going to be 8 days of some really intense stuff, but should be really fun too. We´re headed off with the kids from Pastores (another training town around Antigua). Tomorrow morning (Fri), we´re going to Antigua for a specific class on how certain terms and phrases translate and don´t really mean the same thing...should be pretty beneficial for all of us.

Please send me mail! It´s so fun to get snail mail (and emails...Kels, where´s my weekly fix?). I finally uploaded some pictures to Facebook that I had taken throughout the last 6 months or so I was in the States...it´s hilarious that I finally get around to uploading them when I´m having to pay to use the internet here in Guate. Since we´re leaving Saturday, I won´t have access to a computer for a while...

Wish me luck with my charla tomorrow. My spanish needs your luck.

Marta