las estufas and alien fish

Put up some new pictures on http://guatemalatrip2009.shutterfly.com/ , and it took significantly fewer hours than it did the first time. go internet!

This past week has gone by very quickly. I've been here almost 2 weeks now and it seems to be flying by. I'm pretty much 1/4 done with my trip! Madness. Wed-Fri of last week was spent stove building with a mission group from Colorado, which I really enjoyed. The group was split into 5 teams of 3, and by the end of 3 days we had built 14 stoves in a small community right outside of Xela. It was actually a youth group that came down, meaning it was about 6 preteen boys and their parents. I worked on a team with the youth director and pastor from the church, which was fun except they didn't know a word of spanish and occasionally got agitated when i couldn't translate words like "silly" and "try not to swing that machete so close to my head." The first house we worked at had tons of adorable little kids, which made the whole experience a lot more fun. They were all really eager to help so we put them to work mixing concrete, which for some reason they loved. It was also nice because the area we were working in didn't have walls, so there was a lot of fresh air and sunlight. The second two places we worked were in small enclosed spaces, meaning there was very little light and almost no ventilation. It was difficult to work in there, so I can't even imagine how awful it must have been to cook in there without a chimney. The first day we finished the stove by about 4pm, but by the second and third days we finished by around 1. The families were thrilled, though apparently it takes 18 days for the stoves to be completely ready to cook in...so much for instant gratification. Due to the lack of anyone within a decade of my age and the huge amounts of free time in the afternoon for church bonding activities, I decided to just stay at the AMA house with Jessie and Tony instead of living at el refugio for those few days. It was very easy because in the mornings there was already a driver coming to the AMA house to pick up Kirstin, a girl who works mostly with the MAP program but also helps translate for the mission teams, so I just tagged along with them and then came back with them in the afternoons. On Wednesday though the church group was going repelling near el refugio in the afternoon, which was an activity that I definitely couldn't pass up. So I went along with them and ended up translating between the guides and the church group, which is a lot more exhausting than I ever would have imagined. It's one thing to translate a few sentences at a time, but when you have to translate every interaction that goes on between the group and the guides there is no room for zoning out. I had to translate the whole "orientation" session where they explain how to put the harness on, what equipment is used for what, and how exactly to go about throwing yourself backwards off the side of the cliff. Then we "hiked" up the side of the mountain, which actually involved climbing on all fours up a vertical, muddy jungle. It wouldn't have been quite so bad except I haven't gotten used to the altitude here yet, so I was dying a little bit by the time we got to the top. The cliff was pretty terrifying because, standing at the top, you couldn't see anything over the edge except for the tiny people at the bottom. It didn't help that I had to stay at the top and translate until everyone else had gone, so I had plenty of time to build up lots of terror and a sense of impending doom. By the time it was my turn I was convinced I would never make it down alive. You basically just have to walk backwards off the side of the cliff and trust that the rope will hold you. The scary thing is, YOU are the one holding the rope, and you just have to let it out of your hands little by little and hope it doesn't slip! By the time I got about halfway down I was enjoying it a lot, and I definitely want to go again sometime so I can enjoy it without (some of) the fear. Saturday was the day for reforestation, and Kirsten told me they'd be at the house at 8 am to pick me up, but no one ever showed up and I heard nothing about it all day. So that was a little frustrating because I had a totally wasted day when Jessie and I had considered planning a trip to the hot springs but decided against it to help with reforestation. Things are a little disorganized around here so I'm not terribly surprised, but no harm done and I had a pretty relaxing weekend. On Sunday, Jessie, Tony and I ventured to a market in Xela called "la democracia" (at least that's how it sounds...I'm not sure if that's how it's spelled) which was HUGE. It was like 4 streets full of street vendors selling everything from fruit to strange looking meat to fancy shoes to pirated copies of american movies dubbed over in spanish. It was a lot of fun AND Jessie and I bought an awesome new addition to the AMA family, a fish which we have tentatively decided to name Xook, which is potentially the K'iche word for fish. But I need to check with Hilda on that one. It is a black moor fish, which is basically a black goldfish with giant protruding alien eyes. He's a great family member so far, except sometimes he eats his own poop, which according to wikipedia can be attributed to his bad eyesight. We are going to get little rocks for his new aquarium, which is actually one of those 5 gallon pure water containers with the top cut off. Also a castle for him to play in. So all in all it was a pretty fun weekend, besides not hearing anything from anyone about the church group after parting ways on friday. Today I am starting research on self esteem building activities, since that is the first theme of the women's meetings that I'm going to be planning over the next few weeks. OH, on Saturday night Jessie and I went to this "theater" that was advertised in one of the tourist magazines as being a movie theater that plays a different movie every night, and you can go and order food and watch a movie. So Saturday they were playing Zoolander and we decided to venture out to try to find it. After being lost for about an hour we found the tiny little hole in the wall restaurant, which had a little side room with a bunch of couches and an old little tv sitting on a tv stand. Not much of a "theater", but it was actually really awesome cause we were the only people there and got to order food and watch Zoolander. It felt like we were in someone's basement back home. Definitely a place to go back to. Frequently. Now I'm off to continue working on my outline of self esteem building activities. Happy monday!

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Part of trip: Highland Support Project Internship

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