blue angel

Ok, sorry it's been 9 days since I've written my last blog entry, I'm kind of bad at this whole keeping in touch with the outside world thing. Also, I'm not entirely sure what is happening to all my time here because it is seeming to be disappearing at warp speeds. I am definitely not ready to return to real life.

First order of business, there is this super popular song here that blares out of 97% of the cars that drive by, as well as in parks, restaurants, etc. It is ridiculously catchy and has been stuck in my head for about 3 weeks now. However, the only part of the song I know is that it goes "something-something-corazooo-ooonn" in the chorus. Jessie and I have taken to asking random people on the streets, young boys selling things in the parks, the people who work here, EVERYONE what the name of the song is so we can download it, but NO ONE KNOWS. either that or they tell us a title, we get really excited and look it up, and it's the wrong song. We even had marvin, one of our drivers, go through every song on his phone for like 20 minutes looking for it, but to no avail. How can such a popular song be such a mystery to the inhabitants of the country in which it is to popular? We have also google searched the lists of most popular songs for guatemala, costa rica, el salvador, mexico, and nicaragua. still no luck. definitely the most frustrating project i've taken on since being here.

In other news, I seem to have developed a case of the bed bugs, and they are NOT friendly. Either that or fleas, though I'm not sure where I would have gotten flea bites. Though it may have something to do with my constant need to embrace stray dogs in the streets. But they are so cute I can't help it. But apparently bed bugs are kind of a big thing here, which is unfortunate because they are tiny microscopic biting things that infest your bed/clothes/life/etc. Jessie got them before me, so maybe I got them from sitting in her bed, which I do on a regular basis including right now because I don't like being lonely. Regardless, I took all my sheets to the laundromat today so hopefully the little demons will go away.

I can't remember exactly what I've been doing for the past week and some days, but I can start with last Friday because that was a fairly memorable event. We were told that the kids were going to play a game of pelota maya at a nearby school, so jessie, kirsten and I decided to go watch so that we could see how the traditional mayan ball game is played. however, the only bus that left for the town was at 7 am so we woke up at the crack of dawn to get to the bus stop, only to wait for about an hour because we conveniently forgot about "guatemala time" - ie everything happens at LEAST an hour-2 hours later than it was originally intended to. but we finally made it to the school, which is a k-6 primary school called colegio maya. it turned out to not be a game of pelota maya at all, but instead some kind of giant community celebration where 9 schools from the area and the entire community, consisting of a few hundred people, came out and gathered around an outdoor basketball court. then it was an entire day of groups of kids in matching costumes putting on dances for the spectators. it was pretty amusing, except the vast majority of groups were wearing american cheerleading costumes and bouncing around to 90s techno music such as "we like to party" and sandstorm. it was entertaining, though not exactly the demonstration of traditional mayan culture that we were expecting. the most disturbing display occurred when a group of 8-9 year old boys and girls in traditional mayan clothes did a short dance to traditional music, only to stop the music, rip off their clothes to reveal skimpy green cheerleading costumes, and continue their dance to american rap music. we left after a while and walked to hilda's house, which was only about 10 minutes away, and got to see her week old baby boy. so it was definitely worth the trip.

On Saturday I went to watch a salsa competition in Xela with Jessie, Kirsten, Claudia, and a new girl who is staying at the AMA house for 2 weeks named Laurel. Though I guess she isn't really new any more since she is leaving on Monday. She majored in fashion design at VCU and manages the AMA store in Richmond, and came down to help design a new line of handbags for the store. It's definitely a lot of fun to have another gringa living in the house. So we went to the salsa competition and saw people way younger than me doing all sorts of ridiculous body contortions/dance moves in sparkly costumes. I took a lot of videos on my camera but there's no way they will upload to the internet till I get home.

On Tuesday, I think, I went with Jessie and Lupe to Xeabaj, the town in the mountains where AMA is working to put in playing fields for pelota maya, basketball, and soccer for the kids. The fundraising efforts haven't been going so great though so I'm not sure when it will actually happen, but Jessie went to measure the area so she could design the fields and I just went to hold the pad of paper for her. I'm so useful! But then Lupe left for a meeting in another town and Jessie was trying her best to measure the mountains surrounding the area for the field, so I ended up talking to the director for a long time about the school and community. In guatemala, primary school (k-6) is free, but secondary school, which is like middle/high school, costs a lot of money so most families can't afford to send their kids to school past 6th grade. he said that in Xeabaj, 99% of the families work in agriculture and survive on $3-4/day. when he was a kid, he walked 24 km every day to go to secondary school, then worked in the fields all afternoon so he could have enough money to pay for it. he said putting in the playing fields is important to him because he never got to play games as a kid, and he wants to give the kids in his school that opportunity. he also gave jessie and me a lesson in k'iche...the language has 15 vowels. FIFTEEN. there are the regular a,e,i,o,u, then a,e,i,o,u with two little dots over them, which are pronounced much shorter, then 'a,'e,'i,'o,'u, which are pronounced longer. also, q is pronounced by making a strange clicking noise with your tongue. it really seems more like a star trek language than an ancient indigenous language. i really want to become an expert. That evening, Jessie and I decided to cook a meal for the people at the AMA house, including our most recent addition, Karen, a dancer from Richmond who is teaching dance classes in schools around the area. So we went to the market and got lots of things, then spent ~3 hours making homemade alfredo sauce with broccoli and shrimp, and then carrot fritters with a sauce that starts with a b, and bread from xelapan. it was a major change from our usual tacos, but definitely worth it.

Yesterday I went with Karen to her dance class at colegio maya to help translate, but she is pretty good at spanish and didn't need much help from me so i ended up just frolicking around with the kids. they were ridiculously cute. she taught them a dance and showed them how to do different stretches, as well as ballet positions. Then we had some time to kill before catching the bus back, so this adorable 5 year old girl dragged me into her classroom and made me sit down at a table that was about 19 inches tall and recited the numbers from 1-100 for me. Then that night, Lupe, Jessie, Karen, Laurel and I went to this sauna nearby that is actually just a bunch of rooms built into the side of the volcano and are heated by the lava flowing underneath. It was so so so so hot and within 30 seconds of entering the room you are dripping with sweat, but it was relaxing and cleansing and not unbearable if you leave every so often and jump into a cold shower. Glad I can cross a volcano-heated sauna off of things to experience in life! Today I've just been attempting to write up some of the info I've gathered by talking to people and seeing new places. And I'm going to a yoga class with Jessie and Kirsten soon. Feliz fin de semana!

---

Part of trip: Highland Support Project Internship

---