¡Viva Guatemala! Second go Round!: Scatter Brain

This is a very scattered post:

This past Friday I spent about half of my day reading for HOURS! My geography class (which all the reading is for) is looking at the concept of Globalization and how the "global" effects the "local". We are looking at the idea of globalization in rural areas in relation to Guatemala and even Antigua. I tend to have the literal brain and not the conceptual of lets ponder huge concepts with thousands of different answers brain. If anyone has any opinions on this topic please feel free to share.

Ok now I am going to complain for a second. I think being here makes you appreciate the little things in life like wi-fi, as horrible as that is. Unfortunately, my house does not have internet. This makes doing homework and communicating very difficult. In order to use the internet I have to go to a cafe, buy something then use the internet. As you can see, minor problems in life in the realm of things, but a pain none the less.

This past weekend I had my first adventure with street food! I had a fajita thing... Fried onions, bell peppers and some kind of meat(honestly who knows what is was, I chose not to ask). I will venture to say chicken (more wishful thinking than anything). But, it was delicious with HOT HOT salsa and something of a soft green sauce. So far so good, have not gotten sick (fingers crossed). Advice: do not eat the ceviche here. If you do eat it and its chewy spit it out immediately and make sure to be close to a bathroom at all times.

Saturday morning woke up semi early and went to watch the Independence Day parade. I thought Tucson's St. Patty's day parade was a decent size, Anitgua has it beat. There were more school marching bands than schools. I can not explain how many bands I saw and dancers and costumes. It went on for at least 3 hours and then some. And then hours later there was some more marching and then about 3 hours later some more. My favorite band played "I Believe I can Fly" and had some serious swag. For my grandparents and parents swag can be defined as serious rhythm and sweet dance moves. It was a 2 day celebration.
I must say if you are ever in Antigua and you hear a series of gunshots... 1. Don't run immediately 2. Try not to duck immediately 3. Look around. Most likely it is some kids setting of bottle rockets in the streets but it literally sounds like gunshots and it echoes through the whole town!
The rest of the day was pretty mellow but I was walking home around 9:30 with my friend Dylan and we were stopped by a group of Guat kids (college age) and said it was this girls birthday and asked to take a picture. So we took it. Warning: this is a ploy to get you to go out with them and buy them drinks. You learn quick here.

Ok now on to Sunday! My friend Guellmo who is from Guatemala City gave me one of his bikes and took my friend Colleen and I on a 10 km bike ride! It was incredible. Wow such great description right. Here it goes. I'm not going to name every town because it honestly will not mean anything but in total we went to 6 different small towns all very close to Antigua. He told us the story of how the 3 volcanoes, Picaya, Agau and Fuego (which surrond us, Fuego is the one that has been all over the news) came to be named and then went on to tell us the history of each town. As we were riding chicken buses would fly by us. For those of you who have never heard of a chicken bus it is the so called public transportation. I would venture to say that these buses are all the old school buses from the U.S that are deemed unsafe. Yea... They decorate them with different colors and on a good day you might get to sit in a seat. They PACK people in there. The key to riding them is sitting in the back because the escape door is there other exit! It costs about 3Q which is not even 50 cents to ride and they haul ass! Sometimes I think the driver might be slightly inebriated. This is Guatemala for you. Don't worry I have not taken them! Smart decisions. But they have no care for bikers. You best get out of their way before they run you over with their balding tires and exhaust fumes that leave you in a cloud of black smoke. As if I wasn't breathing hard enough to make it up the hill on a bike the chicken bus chokes me. Anyway moving on, town we went to had a church that seemed to server as the focal point of the town.A brief history, back in the colonial period the Jesuit order came to Guatemala and pushed Catholicism on all of these small towns. Before, most of the people were polytheistic. You can imagine this conversion for the Jesuits. In order to appease the indigenous people they built four outdoor ramadas where the people could pray. Many of the indigenous people did not believe in a building as a symbol of place or worship so the Jesuits built the ramadas. Thought that was interesting. All the towns we visited were partially dirt roads and partially cobblestone. The people were so welcoming but curious what we were doing.
The history of each town seems so different even though in reality they may only be 3 km away from one another. We rode through a lot of coffee plantations and different farms. A different lifestyle. I also saw a "pila". This is the common washing station for the town. The town women take their clothes there and do all their laundry by HAND. A woman asked me how I did mine and I was embarrassed to say I had a washer and a dryer and was too lazy to even do that sometimes. Life put into perspective again. We rode for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours and ended with some traditional Guatemalan dulces (candy)! Yum I feel like it was pure brown sugar!
I will say though, my host mom still has the common misconception that Americans (meaning me and my roommates) need super sized portions. This is not the case. She piles food on our plates and is upset when we have trouble finishing it. We have been trying to tell her to cook less food cause we simply can not eat that much but its been a slow process... Hence the reason I feel I weigh about 500 lbs. When I return please do not judge my jowels. As someone who I will not name said, "Court, your taking up space"... I AM TAKING UP SPACE. So depressing.