Playing with Fire

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Dias 13, 14, y 15
Friday morning I woke up to shocking news- not one, but TWO of the boys from our group were in the hospital with stomach trouble! Turns out both Mike and Stephen were suffering from parasites and amoebas, and had to be kept overnight in the private hospital in Xela to be given IV’s and receive parasite medications. All morning I was stressing, trying to figure out what they had eaten and why Matt and I weren’t sick. I guess they must have eaten something together that the rest of the group didn’t have, because thankfully Matt and I never ended up getting sick (well, as sick as they were). With this added reason to worry, I was especially motivated to get my “muestra,” or stool sample, in to the lab where Margarita (my host sister) works to check for bacteria and parasites. I will spare you all the gory details- but this task proved harder than I expected… but finally, the results came back late Friday night, and I am parasite-free! Margarita was teasing me as she handed me the envelope, saying I was going to die, but she did the test herself and knew I was going to be just fine  I’m still going to be extra vigilant, of course, in making sure I am careful about what I eat and avoiding street food.
Most of Friday morning was spent trying to figure out what was going on with the boys, and what we were going to do for the weekend. Since we got here this weekend had been planned already to go to Lago Atitlan, a beautiful lake a few hours outside Xela that is ringed with 3 volcanos. We were scheduled to leave right after class Friday at 1 PM to spend one night in Panahachel, a lively lakeside village with lots of artesans, shopping, and restaurants. Then on Saturday we were planning on taking a boat over to Santa Cruz, a tiny, isolated village with only a few thousand people, where we would relax, swim, and hike. Needless to say, our plans needed to be changed somehow in light of the fact that half of our group was in the hospital.. Rachelle gave us the option to go on with our original plans without the boys, but both Matt and I didn’t feel right about doing that. WE decided to at least postpone the trip till Saturday morning to give the boys a chance to recover and decide for themselves if they felt up to the trip.
During class on Friday (my last class with Carmen! Sad!) Carmen and I talked about all kinds of things, focusing mostly on health. I told her about my limited knowledge of allergies, cancer, alcoholism.. and it became abundantly clear that physicians here rarely bother to explain health to patients here. Carmen truly believed allergies were contagious, and she seemed genuinely surprised when I talked about a genetic element in cancer. It was really rewarding to explain to her simple concepts about her health that really seemed to make an impact on her life. She listened intently when I told her lifestyle changes she can make to reduce her risk for cancer, and seemed to have an epiphany when I explained to her what happens to the body in epilepsy. Overall, it was a great last day of classes and I know I will miss Carmen.. but hopefully she will be around school next week when we start afternoon classes!
After class, normally we go home for lunch, but today there was a special party to celebrate “Dia del maestro,” or Teacher’s Day. Gladys and her family made a huge feast of carne asada, beans, grilled potatoes, avocado, and Jamaica te (hibiscus tea!!). There was even pie afterwards- a tropical pie of pineapple and papaya, which was heavenly. During lunch I sat by Mike’s teacher, Eduardo, who is a riot. He is constantly poking fun at someone, and I was the subject of amusement for the people sitting by me at lunch. I told them stories of my language faux-paus in Spain, and he followed up with ridiculous stories of past students and his own mistakes learning English. Soon I found myself making my own new mistakes at the table as I tried to navigate my way through Guatemalan slang, failing miserably. It was a really fun lunch, and I hope I get Eduardo as a teacher for a portion of my time here- he’s incredibly funny and really knows his stuff.
After lunch Matt, Rachelle and I headed over to the Hospital de Democracia to visit Mike and Stephen. The small blue building absolutely REEKED of ammonia, but I guess it’s better to be smelly than to be dirty. The boys were both in the same room, a barren closet-sized room with no windows, no TV, and a tiny bathroom. The beds were extremely old fashioned, with a hand crank at the foot of the bed to lower or raise the mattress to sitting position. I couldn’t help but wonder: if this is the expensive, private hospital, what does the public hospital look like? Guess I will get to see next week when I volunteer.… Mike was in great spirits, looking and acting like himself despite the fact he was wearing ridiculously large blue hospital pajamas. Stephen was looking pretty pale and wiped out- he seemed absolutely exhausted, and was still struggling with some nausea. They ended up keeping both of them till about 6 PM Friday night, so each of them stayed a little less than 24 hours. They were both extremely dehydrated when they came in, and each received SIX IV bags of saline to rehydrate them! Poor Stephen apparently came in with a blood pressure of 80/50- insanely low!
When we went to leave the hospital we were greeting by sheets of pouring rain. This was, of course, the ONE time I left my house without an umbrella or poncho. We waited outside for a few minutes before giving in and walking home in the rain, reaching home thoroughly soaked. I quickly changed into some dry clothes and met Matt at the corner by school to head to the gym. I alternated running, jogging, and walking on the treadmill to do a little over 3 miles, then did some ab work and stretched a lot. I am definitely still out of shape, but it felt really good to get my heart pumping and I met my goal of exercising 3 times this week! I came home, took a nice hot shower, and met Matt back up to go try out dinner at Bajo la Luna. I tried a pork loin with tamarind and chocolate sauce with lemon infused rice and pineapple. The sauce was delicious, but the pork was a little dry.. nevertheless the fancy meal only cost be about $5 USD so I can’t complain  After dinner Rachelle called us to say that the boys were out of the hospital but weren’t quite feeling up to the weekend trip. After much debate, we decided to go ahead with the trip. Though we felt bad, we knew that by staying here we wouldn’t be able to make either of them feel any better, and no matter what we did this weekend they would be missing out.
So, Saturday morning Matt, Rachelle and I ventured out to find a microbus to take to terminal, where we caught a chicken bus towards Lago Atitlan. The ride was especially long and bumpy, taking about 2 ½ hours and leaving us all a bit nauseous. As we flew down the winding roads into the valley where the lake is, I was taken by how gorgeous it all was. The steep, brilliant green mountains were carved into tiers for farming, small houses dotted on steep hillsides. The lake was vast and silvery, framed by two huge, ominous black mountains whose tops were obscured by clouds but clearly took the shapes of volcanoes. We finally arrived in Pana, where we were greated by dozens of eager venders trying to peddle their wares. Most of the things in the shops were similar to what we saw in the market at Chichi, with tons of leather goods, scarves, blankets, paintings, and touristy T shirts. We worked our way down the main street of the village and stopped to eat lunch at a place called Deli. A tiny little open air restaurant with a giant tree growing up in the middle, this place had one of the largest menus I’ve seen since I’ve been here. I finally decided on the daily special, which was curry stir fried vegetables with tofu on top of brown rice with a mango chutney sauce. My body has been crazing vegetables when I got here and my prayers were answered! I never knew I could miss broccoli so much.. haha. After a delicious (and as always, cheap!) lunch we headed down towards the pier to catch a boat to our destination, Santa Cruz. An old man started following us about 10 minutes before we got to the pier, trying to rip us off. He initially told us it would be 50 Quetzals per person for the boat, and by the time we reached the pier, he charged us 15 Q per person (that’s about $2 a piece). The boat was a tiny little blue-and white motorboat that they packed with so many people that Matt and I were forced to sort of squat at the front. It was early afternoon and clouds had been collecting on the lake, which at this point had become very choppy and angry. The 15 minute boat ride was, well, damp. Sitting in the front turned out to be one of the driest places we could have chosen, but I still got sprayed a little bit. I didn’t care though, because the view was absolutely spectacular. Huge mountains drop off into sheer cliffs of emerald green as they approach the lake. It was breathtaking.
As we pulled up to Santa Cruz, the first building we saw turned out to be our hostel, La Iguana Perdida (The Lost Iguana). It was AWESOME! This place had tons of patio and shared-areas with great views of the lake, well equipped with hammocks, patio furniture, and couches. They also had a pool table, a nice TV room with tons of movies, and an awesome little bar in the main restaurant. I guess another group checked in and took our room, so we got a free upgrade to a room called “The Cabana.” It was a huge relief- when we had called to make the reservations, we had booked a room for the boys and when we went to book a room for Rachelle and I, we were given two options- a room with one double bed and electricity… ooooor a room with two single beds, but NO ELECTRICITY! I couldn’t believe it, it was such a foreign concept to me to stay in a hotel without electricity. We decided on the room with 2 beds, but lucky for us, the free cabana upgrade came with electricity  Our room was essentially a small rustic cabin with a corrugated tin roof, a private bathroom (our other room would have had a shared bathroom!!), and tiny patio. It was very cute, but smelled pretty musty inside despite the fact that it was very clean. I would imagine virtually all buildings here end up smelling musty, with all the rain and moisture they get… The best part about the room?? For the two of us, we paid 90 quetzals- that’s about $10 USD for BOTH OF US!! Granted, this was the rate for the room without electricity, I’m not sure how much the cabana would have cost.. but either way, that is SO cheap!! After taking a look around this place and learning how cheap it was, I’ve decided to officially add this place to my list of places I HAVE to come back to someday!!
We got settled for a few minutes they quickly headed out to the lake in our swimsuits, eager to try the water. La Iguana Perdida had private dock with a ladder down to the water, with was about 72 degrees or so. This would have been nice on a sunny day, but the clouds hung pretty low and the water was getting choppier by the hour. After Matt slipped in the water, I decided to just go for it and jumped in. We swam around for a few minutes, but got tired as it was too deep to stand and we didn’t think ahead enough to bring tubes or noodles to float with. We headed back to the hotel shivering when we realized they had a sauna you could fire up. Without thinking about the fact that we literally had to start a fire to heat up the tiny cement dome they built, we immediately went to work to get it going. Between the three of us, we made an absolutely pitiful effort to start a fire, proving none of us had ever been a boyscout… Finally a British guy on the staff had to come over and help us, as we had wasted almost 2 days worth of newspaper with no success. Once he helped us light it, we realized that it would be over an hour before the sauna was actually hot and worth going in to.. we obvious did not plan this out very well… We picked up our books and read for a while in the hammocks, checking on our fire every few minutes. Our patience finally paid off when we went in about 90 minutes later. The sauna wasn’t quite as amazing as the natural one we saw in Los Vahos, but it was pretty darn close. After roasting for an incredibly relaxing 30 minutes we headed back to our rooms to get ready for dinner. Despite the fact that we had electricity and what looked like an electric showerhead, Rachelle and I each suffered through ice-cold showers. Then we all headed back down to the restaurant for the barbeque. Still excited at the prospect of veggies, I signed up for the vegetarian special for the bbq, which turned out to be an EXCELLENT decision. They had a ton of different salads and sides, but my main dish was a beet-root burger- and it was life-changing. I got the recipe and am hoping to try it when I get home, but I doubt I’ll be able to replicate it in all its glory. No joke, I am going to have dreams about that beet burger.
All in all it was a really fun, relaxing night. We bounced back and forth between chatting with other hostel guests, eating dinner, and watching the US lose to Mexico for the Copa de Oro (it was ugly… I don’t want to talk about it). There was one Guatemalan family staying at the hostel, and the rest of the guests were straight gringos, from the US, Canada, and England. We actually met quite a few other medical students, as there turned out to be a program similar to Somos Hermanos based in Santa Cruz. Probably the most exciting part of the night, though, was the fire dancing! Nico, the British guy who helped us build our fire, brought out a huge staff and started fire-dancing randomly after dinner- he was incredible! After doing a few rounds, he offered to let someone else try. I was shocked when a law student next to me went right up to try it! I watched in disbelief as he lit the stick and handed it to her. She looked a little uncertain in the beginning, but slowly got a rhythm and was able to pull off some figure-eights for a few minutes. Against my better judgment, I suddenly made up my mind that I would always regret it if I never tried it, and found myself immediately volunteering to go next. Yeah, I know it’s a bad idea.. but in my defense, it was raining so I had it in my head that it would be harder to catch myself on fire because of this. Thirty seconds later, I found myself standing in front of the group with a 5 foot flaming staff. It was wild! I started spinning it slowly in front of me, held out as far as possible from my body. I didn’t really make it must past that, but got a pretty good rhythm going for a little! It was a blast, and I convinced Matt to try it after me. Sure, it was probably a terrible idea.. but when else am I gonna get the chance to do something like that?!? I love this place!! 
When we went to bed, I finally learned the difference between a corrugated plastic and tin. Rain on a plastic roof is soothing, calming in a way… rain on a tin roof, despite all of the romanticized song lyrics and movie scenes, is just plain LOUD. Laying in bed I felt like I was in a microwave surrounded by actively popping popcorn. With time, I got used to it and got a pretty good night’s sleep.. but I have a whole new appreciation for what it feels like to live in a home with a tin roof. In the morning, we had a delicious breakfast but were greeted by rain at about 8AM. It didn’t let up until 11 when we had to check out. Thankfully, as we caught it in between rain, the lake was a lot calmer than the day before and we made it across without much spray. When we arrived in Pana we made a quick loop through the shops again and ended up back at Deli again for lunch. We felt a little silly eating at the same place two days in a row, but it was just so good! I had an avocado sandwhich with alphalpha sprouts, sunflower sprouts, onion, tomatoe, and lettuce.. it was refreshing and again satisfied my bodies craving for greens. Then we piled back onto a chicken bus for a bumpy, stomach-turning 2 hour ride back to Xela, where it was, of course, raining.
I came back to the house, did some homework, showered, and got my things together. I realized “The King’s Speech” was playing at Blue Angel, a small café near the park that has 2 movie rooms with a monthly schedule of movie screenings at 8 PM. Mike and I decided to check it out, venturing out into the cold dark rain only to realize htat the power was out in half the city- including the area where Blue Angel is located. We were bummed, but as we walked back towards our houses we noticed there was still a lot of activity in the market by the park. The market consists of tons of little food and drink stalls, and each of them was not lit by small bonfires or individual candles. The result was beautiful, like a step back in time. We walked through the stalls, enjoying the many smells of the streetfood swirling together. It all smelled WONDERFUL, but I forced myself to avoid buying it for my stomach’s sake.. I don’t want to end up in the hospital any time soon! I finally gave in and bought something, though, when I saw a sign for Atol de Maiz. Rachelle told me about this drink when I first got here, so I had to try it. It is a thick, creamy hot drink made with corn and cinnamon. I bought a huge steaming cup for about 50 cents and Mike and I took a seat next to some gringos (which I took to be a good sign- this stuff had to be safe, right??) under a tent right behind the booth. The drink was delicious and tasted like sweet corn sprinkled with cinnamon. I might regret saying this later.. but for now? I think even if I get sick that Atol was worth it.
Well, I am headed to bed, big day tomorrow! We have our first week working at our volunteer sites. I will be working at a Women’s Clinic called Nuevos Horizontes Mondays and Wednesdays, the main hospital in Toto on Tuesdays, and a clinic called ICA on Thursdays. For now we have Friday mornings off in case we want to travel but if I like my positions I may take on an extra day.. we will see! Goodnight, besos!!

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