The Kite Festival!

Dia de Los Muertos! It is interesting, being in Guatemala I have learned to celebrate the dead. For Day of the Dead I attended a traditional Kite Festival in Sumpango. For about 6 months to a year before the Day of the Dead, groups of people or separate teams create these beautiful kites in honor of Day of the Dead. On the actual day there is a huge festival in Sumpango where they put all the kites up (all shapes and sizes), there is food beyond belief and the cemeteries are garnished in beautiful flowers and different types of decorations. The people celebrate their dead and give thanks to them. The cemeteries become beautiful locations of celebration. Our group decided we should leave at 6 30 am to get there early just for good seats... So not necessary. For about the first two hours I sat waiting for the kites to go up in the cold with an empty stomach. Delightful! But around 9 all the different teams started to put their kites up. There were kites ranging from 5 ft to almost 65 ft. It was incredible to see the art and dedication in each kite. Each kite has its own design, message and shape. I would venture to say the kites represent their creators. Around 11 Sumpango started filling up with people from all over. Our group decided to walk through the town and visit the cemetery as well as the market. People where everywhere. Slightly overwhelming but amazing to see the community work together to support such a major day of celebration and thanks. In order to put up the larger kites the men attached large ropes to the top of the kite which were supported by bamboo. Once they had the kite secure they fed the rope through a pulley system and about 25 men jump on the rope and play tug of war with the kite for about 15 minutes. You can hear 2 or 3 men shouting orders as the kite rises foot by foot. For the very large kites you can see men literally jumping up the rope to use their entire body weight to pull the rope down. It is incredible. We stayed at the kite festival until about 12 and then headed home. Instead of taking the boring old highway home we went four wheeling through the mountains to descend into the Antigua valley. It was weird we were higher up in altitude and we could see pine trees and it reminded me of home. I know you are all saying, uh Courtney you live in the desert but it reminded me of Mt. Lemmon and the fresh air. Just a small something to identify with. It made me really miss home. Ok that is all for now.

Putting up a kite! 

Kids kite! 

Cemetry in Sumpango! 

Just a blog of pictures!

Random but here is my Kaqchikel teacher! 

And my awesome cheerleader costume! Whats up!

Beach girls! 

Starting from the left Colleen, me and Brittany! 

All the nurses having after hour snacks! Yummy crepes

The beginning of the Mayan Ruins! (Look at those outfits!)

Ancient Mayan staircase 

Once a community center for the Mayans

This was the start to our Pyramid adventures!

Slightly confused... My face" "Uh guys what she did she say in Spanish"

Lunch spot along the river Rio Dulce

The School Crew! What a good looking bunch! Ha

Start to the pyramids! We will attempt to ascend all of them

Yet another one! 

Unfortunately could not climb this one :( 

Another community center! So much room there is a giant pyramid to my left! 

I'm tiny.. For once! 

I won the race up! 

Meet Daniel (left) an RUFINO! 

Meet Courtney (left ha!) and RUFINO

FINALMENTE!!!

Wow… I know I have not written for all of  the past, shall I say three weeks. Not to worry though I am back in civilization and have so much to update everyone on. Where do I even start… The 7.5 mag earthquake, or the 9 hour bus trip to Mayan ruins, or my extreme food poisoning or the new treatment for Rufino ( the young man with the genetic skin disease)… SO MUCH TO TELL… I will start with a small story about my friend Andres that will attempt to describe my excitement the past couple of weeks and how I feel right now!!!!
                So I have this friend Andres, very nice Guatemalan man that has taken my friends and I around Antigua to show us all the traditional Guate ways. That sounds a little politely incorrect but you get the idea. Anyways, the other day Andres was talking to me about how my Spanish is improving and I just got so excited. I feel like I take two steps forward maybe one back then three forward and then 2 back and so on and so on. As I say in Spanish “Depende en el dia”. But Andres is also practicing English so we take turns on which days we will speak each language. As I said the other day Andres told me, “You know Courtney, sometimes you just get so excited and I can neither understand your English nor Spanish so I just listen for a time that way I know what time we are meeting.” I believe my mom and everyone else has told me to slow down when I am speaking especially on the telephone… I just can’t help it guys, I get so excited!!! This is how I feel right now! I am bounded and restrained by my keyboard! Help… I am about to explode with excitement and happiness! Poor keyboard, I am trying to type so fast it just sounds like I am pounding on it. Anyway done with my side rant! Ok, here is the plan since I am so scatter brained I am going to start with the week of my demise…

It was a Sunday night… I had a lot of homework to do, I already ate dinner and well I was still hungry. So I decided ok, I’ll have a fruit smoothie. Drank the fruit smoothie, started my homework, tried to do my homework and did not finish my homework. Productivity level here is minimal. Anyway around 10 pm I started having shooting pains through my stomach and ribs. I went home decided to just go to bed and then proceeded to lay wide awake with shooting pains for about an hour. I will not go into gory details but I proceeded to violently throw up for the next 5 hours. I have never felt so horrible in my life, I thought well this is the rare disease taking over my body and I might just die in this tiny bathroom with only my vomit to keep me company. After about 3 hours my host mom opened the bathroom door, let out a small scream and closed the door. Come to find out she thought I was borracha(drunk) and decided not to help me. Later that morning she apologized after she realized I was very ill. The rest of the day was spent in my bed, drinking manzanilla tea. I kid you not everyone in Guatemala thinks manzanilla tea is a fix all… It is good but definitely not a fix all cause I still felt like death. The rest of the week was slow, and very unexciting… I pulled a neck muscle somehow so I spent the week recuperating and trying not to cry for my parents! I will say one thing, my host mom came into my room later in the week and said, “Courtney, you are the bravest student I have had. Every girl that has gotten sick in my house has cried for her mom and you just dealt with it!” I will go ahead and pat myself on my back for putting my big girl pants on and dealing with it! Oh, I forgot to say that I have come to the conclusion the smoothie was the cause of this horrible week.

Ok enough of the barfy week! Moving on. Here are just a few random thoughts from the last 3 weeks. One of the nurses I work with, who we shall call Lily has renamed me to simply “Corny”. I like to think that comes with a good connotation. Lets see here, my Spanish teacher Nory was staring at me one class and I said Nory what are you looking at. She says “WOW! Look at all your leg hair!” Thanks Nory… I am not trying to impress anyone here! So needless to say ladies and gentlemen I have not shaved my legs since I arrived in Guatemala! No judgment, I am getting in touch with my natural side. Ok now on to the weekend or one of them in the last three weeks. I decided to go out dancing with the girls. Now I was thinking ok salsa here we go. Salsa would have been a luxury, no it was SWEATY, HOT, SMELLY, and everyone was dancing about 2 cm from the next person. There was no room for Jesus, come on people do we not remember our eighth grade dances. Ok side note: I remember one of my 8^th grade dances. That very awkward time of your life… And my dad happened to be at this dance, cannot remember if he was a chaperone or what but the kid I would never have wanted to dance with in my entire life asked me to dance right in front of my dad. I hesitated to respond and then I got the eyes. And of course had to dance with the kid. Anyways side track but needless to say I did not like the dancing. Let’s see in the course of the night I was told that I am so special and different and that I should be this kids girlfriend, and I was asked to get married. The Latin charm did not work on me so no worries family I am not getting married or engaged nor do I have a boyfriend.

Ok on to bigger things. It has been a while but reach into your memory for the blog about the young man named Rufino. I will now tell you the whole story of Rufino, the sad parts, the good parts, the frustrating parts and the unfair parts. Rufino was born 23 years ago in a small town called Buena Vista, which is situated about 10km outside of Antigua. Buena Vista is positioned partially on top of one of the mountain ranges and draws most of its income from farming. Here goes the sad part. Rufino was born via incest. His father raped his brother’s daughter and that is how Rufino was born. She fled after he was born and he is now left with no mother to take care of him. Fortunately for Rufino, he has six other brothers that have tried to help maybe not with the most valiant and dedicated effort but none the less have tried. When I met Rufino, he was sitting outside, in pig manure and in the sun. His three small cousins all around age 8 where playing around him but not including Rufino. I sat near Rufino but he really didn’t talk with me much. After about two weeks of calls and lots of emails we got Rufino a Dr. appointment in the city with one of the top hospitals. Our journey started at 4 30am to pick him up and ended mid-afternoon. We took him to breakfast at the lovely McDonalds for some fine dining. In reality nothing was open but anyway. The doctor apt went well. The first visit our primary doctor started to put a team of doctors together for Rufino’s care. In one visit he already had 4 doctors working for him. After the first apt he had about three after, one with a geneticist, one with an eye doctor and another with a dermatologist. Immediately we started antibiotic eye drops and a special cream from Mexico for his body. He was to implement the total body cream and eye drops as a first step. Along with the treatment we started implementing more water consumption, less sun exposure and more bathing. Within about two weeks Rufino looked like a completely different person. We think that since Rufino has such a rare genetic disease, the cross-breeding expressed two recessive traits that were Ichthyosis. Anyway the science isn’t important but his future care is. I will be creating a documentary of Rufino’s life and a hope fund for him to continue treatment and support to ensure a more comfortable pain free life. About two days ago, I went up to his house and brought some banana bread and orang juice (his favorite) and just talked with him. He sat right up when I came in and started talking with me immediately. It put a smile from ear to ear on my face to see him perk up so fast. Usually he is really shy but, he talked with me for about 15 minutes and then I was on my merry way and couldn't help but be happy. So I will let all of you know but there will be a hope fund started for Rufino so he can continue treatment and improvement.

Ok now on to some lighter stuff!  My trip to Tikal (Mayan ruins and pyramids)! So this trip is one of our school provided field trips! Great I don’t have to do any planning… I just have to make sure I get my butt on the bus at the right time. The right time was approximately 4 am! Um I cannot remember the last time I got up that early… I think maybe it was more like I couldn’t sleep and stayed up until 4. Anyway cry me a river right, I get to see Mayan ruins stop being a baby! So our bus ride was approximately 8 ½ hours. I think I slept for about 8 ½ hours. I was so exhausted and I lucked out and got a whole bus row to myself. Living in luxury now, I could extend my legs out and stretch. It was excellent. We made about 3 stops on our way to Tikal. First was called Quirwa which is ancient Mayan community that was uncovered and now a national park. The park has a couple ruins, hieroglyphs and a community center unearthed. There is still about half the park that could be unearthed but the funding is slightly insufficient. So that was our first stop. This was about 9 am. We had already drive for about 4 to 5 hours and they expected to listen to a tour guide in SPANISH! I know I have been in class but to listen to history for two hours in Spanish I was understanding about every 6^th word. Fail! It was beautiful though! Then we got back on the bus for another 1 to 1 ½ drive to Rio Dulce which is a beautiful town situated on one of the large rivers and has “beach front” property, the only way to describe the beautiful houses and boat docks. We ate lunch in Rio, they had delicious coconut bread which I over indulged and ate like 4 pieces… Can really feel that on the waist line! Back on the bus now for another 3 or 4 hours. Time here is really dependent on the driver one and the traffic two. A two hour trip can turn into a 5 hour trip with bad traffic. Like I said pretty much slept the whole trip so we finally get to our hotel around 7 pm. Beyoootiful! It was situated on the side of the river with a edgeless pool and beautiful views of the water. Our rooms were nice simple but nice and they had HOT running water with an excellent adjustable shower head. The necessities in life right… Don’t take things for granted… Huge theme of my trip. Anyway I proceeded to fall asleep right after dinner around 9 30 which I do not know how that is possible since I slept the entire bus ride but I guess my body just needed a little extra descansar! The next day was a full day of Mayan ruins and pyramids. I would attempt to describe their beauty and grandeur  but it is not possible in words. The whole day was spent walking through ruins, jungles and up and down pyramids. Which walking up the pyramids made me feel obese. I was breathing so hard… Embarrassing… I think I am growing an extra chin. Please do not be afraid to tell me! We ate lunch amongst the pyramids in the national park and continued our explorations on another overly full stomach. Hopefully when I get back to the states I’ll be tired of eating since I am doing so much of it here! Ha The second half of the day we went to another national park with more pyramids and spent the last hours of our day on top of a pyramid that overlooked the river and the sunset descending behind the mountains. In the background you could hear howler monkeys but the tranquility of the place was overwhelming. We all sat watching the sunset for about an hour in silence. It was amazing to just think about the ancient civilizations that used to live there and how they could see the same things as we could. Breathtaking. Our day ended with a delicious chicken dinner and a little bit of wine then bed. Remember that 8 ½ hour bus ride to Tikal now we have to do it back home… Gaaaah! No more buses! Again I slept for most of the ride until the last two hours when I had to pee so bad and we were stuck in Guat City traffic. Not enjoyable considering how many bumps there was in the road. Everyone, listen I know Tucson is THE land of potholes but Tucson has nothing on Guatemala. Some of the roads are so bouncy you can barely think! We got home around 9pm and we all, meaning the whole program had to do all our homework that we had so skillfully avoided the whole weekend. Late night to say the least.

Wow that was a lot to digest. But this week as many of you may know my Grandma and her friend Lynn will be visiting me in Antigua. More to come on all of our travels and adventures with the, as my Papa Clarke would put it “Dinosaurs” in Guatemala. Of course I am joking but I have been looking forward to them coming for quite some time now! I’m sure I will have some nice stories and photos! Hope everyone is well J Abrazote a todo! 

Enferma :(

Well besides not having access to my computer... The Hp company here is really running on Guatemala time I must say. They were supposed to have my cord by last Friday and I am still waiting... So that is just great and then on top of that I got food poisoning on Monday. Yes, it feels like death if you have not experienced it. I have never been so violently ill before and hope to never experience that again. I'll spare everyone the details but I was not able to sleep the whole night. Quite awful. Hopefully,  by tomorrow I will be feeling up to par again but for now I am just being a bum. My host mom told me I was the first girl who did not cry when I was sick. She said "Que valiente", or how courageous. She told me every other girl who got sick at her house would cry for her mom and she would have no idea what to do. Don't get me wrong I wish somewhere would have been by my side to hold my hand but lets be honest throwing up is just not pretty, who wants to see that. That is about as graphic as I am going to get. But like I said fingers crossed hopefully I feel better tomorrow!
Miss you all and like I keep promising hopefully by the end of the week I will have my computer cord and I can post about the last week or so, minus the stomach problems.
Love to all :)

Technology

Hello everyone! It feels as if it has been a while since I have updated my blog. I have run into a problem. I still do not have a computer cord therefore I am being a mega moocher and I have not had enough time to write. Que triste! But by Thursday I should be able to buy a computer cord from the city. By the way the Hp mark up here is outrageous. I believe my new computer cord will cost about 100 US dollars. WHAT??? Wish I did not have to rely on technology at this moment. But I will update everyone on Thursday! 

So behind!!!

Wow I did not realize how behind I was on my writing! This is going to be a long one guys! I have so much to say!

We shall start with my internship day last week the 10th! One of the other students, Brittany decided to come with me. If you recall our mode of transportation is an outdated motorbike. Daniel, the nurse, always told me I weighed a lot now we are going to attempt three people on this pos (only way I feel describes the bike). I mean we only had to go 3 km. That is not bad right. 3 km felt like 3 hours. We had to go so slow and every bump I swore the tire would just plum fall off. I basically had my bum on the fender. Great! Needless to say I am writing this blog so we did make it there and back in one piece. The town we visited is Called Hermano Pedro, which is situated in between two small mountains and part of the town is built on the side of the mountain. Very poor town, needs a lot of simple infrastructure. But anyway Brittany and I checked patients in, doing weights and heights. Mind you when I had to write their names it was about 7 of them and all of which I had no idea how to spell. The only names I could clearly write were Maria, Gonzalez, Pedro, and Garcia. Yea. That took place the first part of the morning and the second half we visited to mothers who had just given birth about 8 to 10 days ago. The first mother was 26 years old and already had 6 kids. Her newborn was about 6 lbs, slightly malnourished if you ask me and she had to have c-section to have him. Her stitches were done horribly. We took them out and it left a gnarly scar on her stomach. Her house had 3 large beds in it that look about the color of the ground and it just smelled of b.o. All of her children were no older than 8 years old and just about the happiest kids I have seen. I played tag with them for a little bit and they were laughing at me hysterically. I looked like a big ol blue blob chasing them. It broke my heart to see what they had to sleep on just awful. It almost made me a little sick to my stomach to even think of sitting on the bed. The second mother had a "better" housing situation. I put better in quotations because better only explains the idea that its better than the worst but no where near great. Her son was about 8 days old and was having a hard time going to the restroom. Again slightly malnourished and under weight. She will probably have to go to the hospital to have all of his intestines checked. Very sad. On our way home I think the motorbike had a heart attack. Pobre moto! All around a good day.

I also realized this weekend that my camera cord that connects to my computer happened to be in my backpack the little you know what stole. So unfortunately for the time being I have no way to upload any pictures :( Now how will you guys see my "lethargic" self...

Ok on to Friday.. Thursday was not exciting it rained all day... SO TIRED OF RAIN.

Friday was our day to take a field trip into the city with our whole study abroad program. I know many of you have probably seen horrible news clips on Guat city but we will not be in those zones so need to worry. But Camino Seguro is a non-profit organization that started a school program for kids about 12 years ago and were the ones to give us our Guat tour. They took us to the Basura which is the only trash dump in all of Guatemala. That means the entire Guatemala city and surrounding towns dump in this one single area. The city does not own the trash dump, it is run by private owners. Sadly part of the informal economy is run through the sifting and sorting of the trash. Over 400 people work in the trash dump sifting through trash to re -sell or eat. Age has no bound. You will see women with babies strapped to their backs sifting through trash to support their families. It is so sad but its their way of life. Camino Seguro basically started a school program for all the Basura kids. Instead of going to the dump they now have Camino Seguro to attend school and get away from the violence of living in the trash dump. I have shortened the story a lot but I think you get the basic idea. Most of these kids will not make it past 8th grade. But living in the informal economy having passed 6th grade can get you a job. Camino is located in the center of all the squatter settlements and colonial housing. For most of the people just having a tin roof is ten times better than anything they have lived in before. So we got to see the real Guatemala and not just the glamorous tour-on cites! After our tour with Camino Seguro (which stands for Safe Passage) we went into the central downtown area and watched a live peaceful protest to a shooting that happened 2 weeks ago in Xela. The protest focused a lot on independence for the indigenous people and resignation of a lot of political leaders. By this time it was late afternoon and to be honest I was beat. No amount of Guat coffee could wake me up. Bus ride home was very silent, all pooped.

Saturday was another fun day of homework all day. Boooooo! Even though it has been over a month I keep thinking that I am not in school since I am in Guatemala. I need to snap out of this dream.

Sunday fun day! The girls and I decided that since Saturday was spent with our noses in the books we were going to Chichicastenango for their Sunday market! Market is an understatement. It is 4th avenue street food on steroids with a lot of chickens, dogs and young men selling stupid wooden flutes. The market literally took over the whole town of Chichi. They start setting up Wednesday night and hold it only on Thursday and Sunday. It is a sight to see for sure. You will never have so many people in your life offer you to buy a wooden flute. I think I started getting forceful in my "NO GRACIAS" and the word spread that hey this gringa does not want a flute. By the end of the day all the flute vendors knew. The market takes about 10 hours to walk through. It is a giant maze full of bright colored wardrobe and all of the above. I have never seen so much color in my life. How can you decide on one thing to buy... I wanted to get it all! Also if you go far west in the market you get into the livestock area, where you can see cats on leashes, turkeys hanging upside down from wires tied to their feet, little baby chicks in crates (sooooooo cute), ducks  in cages and I wouldn't be surprised if you could just walk home with a new cow. It was chaotic. People yelling out "Good price for you!" or "Your mothaa needs dis" or "You speakin English" ( by the way if you say no or make any response they already stole your attention and have grouped you into their little area). The key is to keep walking eyes straight forward with no recognition unless you want to be bargained with for a half hour. And also a key thing to know is look around for the first part of the day and by the end of the day the prices drop dramatically because everyone is trying to sell their stuff away. So wait until the end of the day and then buy all your goodies. I got a beautiful quilt that originally started at 850 quetzales and by the end of the day was 400.. See what I mean... Patience young grasshopper! And since I have no backpack I bought a traditional woven Mayan backpack! It totally screams tourist but I love it! Oh I must also comment on the chicken bus one last time. We got on all the seats were packed so for 3 hours I stood in the middle, my butt in one persons face and my stomach in the other. Every bump and turn I would smash someone. By the end of the bus ride I started at the front of the bus and the bus attendant kept pushing my back further in the bus so eventually I was by the last seat standing just waiting for the back exit door to swing open... There goes the gringa. I must also mention that the speakers are in the back of the bust and were blaring Salsa music. When I got off the bus my knees were hyper extended, I could not hear a word and I was slightly fumigated from the bus exhaust. Another lovely experience I might add.

Ok ladies and gents that is all for now! More to come this weekend!! 

Learning to weave!

Guess who is back??? Feeling much better this week. Went from feeling extremely homesick to feeling extremely inadequate in the classroom. Not really sure which one I can handle better. But Monday my geography class looked at colonial times in Guatemala and then all of a sudden we were talking about Israel and then we started talking about the processes that lead to globalization and how rural development is directly effected by globalization. I barely even touched on the rest of the three hours of class I had left after that discussion. I can read health statistics, look at graph trends, maybe even determine an outbreak but the idea of rural development in relation to colonial times has really taken my head for a spin. My fingers are crossed that by the end of the semester I will have some clarity on Latin American history and history in relation to North America. Like I said "mis dedos estan cruzado!" That was Monday. Brain dead on Monday night, resulted in going to bed at 9. How great is that? Remember when you were little and never wanted to go to bed early because it wasn't cool or something along those lines? Yea I wish with all my heart that going to bed at 8 30 every night was a reality and nap times were a mandatory part of the work day.

Now on to Tuesday! My Ka'qchikel teacher, Osbilda took us on a tour of her house in San Antonio! San Antonio is about 20 minutes away on a lovely chicken bus! It is always a new experience on a chicken bus but this ride was surprisingly calm with minimal stops and even better minimal people. Once we arrived we walked with Osbilda to her house and she took us on a tour of how to do Mayan weaving. Her room was tiny. Maybe 10 x 10 and she had a bunch of hand carved wooden tools to do everything. I think before I arrived I had this false idea of how they would weave and have fancy tools basically a machine but it was nothing as such. Everything was traditional. The weaver will first pick out raw wool or cotton then wash it, comb it and spin it. Then using a warping board (looks like a 2 x 4 with wood prongs sticking out of it in the shape of a body) she threads  the fresh wool or cotton around to make the starting cloth. This cloth is then attached to her loom which is a a stick the cloth is fed through that attaches to a belt that sits around her lower butt in a sitting position. The complex process of weaving then begins. Depending on the desired length  and design the weaver will use numerous rolls of cotton to create her masterpiece. Now mind you she is explaining this whole entire process in Spanish. I had to do some post research to fully understand everything. The process is a system of adjusting tension in the cotton through the loom by leaning forward and back with the "butt" strap"! After our weaving lesson we all got to try! It was so hard!!! You have to put some back muscle into it holy cow. After learning how to weave we were allowed to all dress up in the traditional traje! It was hysterical. The clothing was so heavy I have no idea how the women where the traje in the heat. I was sweating after about 2 minutes. Take your pictures, look pretty and get the clothing off as fast as possible. Ok that was my tuesday!

Now for the not so great news... I got my backpack stolen so I am lacking a few items, like my computer charger. So my computer is dead and has all my pictures on it. Therefore the next couple posts will probably be lacking some color.

Here is how it went:
I was sitting in a lovely cafe called Michos, the sun was shining, a few birds were chirping in the distant air, the courtyard was filled with English tourist bustling around buying jade things, the fountain had a steady flow and life was just beautiful. Ok... A little dramatic talking about how blissful the day was. BUT... I was sitting in a cafe called Michos and I was working on my computer doing some research, when a little boy selling bracelets approached me. Mind you this young man has approached me about 2 other times and had successfully swindled me into buying bracelets. Why would this time be different??? Of course he was successful but this time he gave me a great price!! (how lucky)What's another bracelet right? Anyway after I gave him the money he was looking at my computer and asked to watch a music video. Reluctantly, I let him watch  a video, which turned into about 2 more videos. I said ok I have to get back to homework so he left and I turned around for about 2 minutes and my backpack was gone. Just that fast. No one even saw him leave. The server and I ran outside, I did about 4 laps around the general area and even went to the mercado where he most likely took it to sell. Sadly I could not find it. Now I started to get angry. I decided if I saw him or even if I see him now I will grab him by his ears lift him off the ground and demand to have my backpack back... (Unrealistic I know but it was my initial reaction). Could not find him anywhere... Sad day, I lost my wallet, all my school books and notebooks and my most favorite chap stick! Anyways sob story is over, its only material things after all but just rather a giant pain in mis pompios (butt).