Simple Update

Hey all,

This is going to be short and sweet, because there is just way too much fun to be had outside of the internet. We just left our Spanish school, and we are about to begin traveling. We´ll start out our adventure by going to a town called Todos Santos for All Saints Day with our friend Molly (who is doing peace corps in Guatemala). We´re pumped! More updates when we have less things to attend to. If you want to get a hold of us, email is the only way!

Hasta luego!

Tortillas, Beans, and Tortillas.

Today is Tuesday, which means only one thing: TACO TUESDAY. (Unfortunately, this deal applies only if you´re in the US) However, it got me thinking about food. Here´s the rundown of some tasty (and other not-so-tasty) Guatemalan dishes:

Black Beans are delicious and/or nutritious. Unfortunately, the above portion is used to feed approximately 18 Guatemalans.

This interesting little guy is a wild plant called Pacaya. It looks like an alien, and tastes like one, too. I´m starting to totally dig it.

A stack of hot, fresh, totally delicous torillas. Free with every purchase of one (1) Guatemalan woman. Some restrictions apply.

Coffee is delicious, and (unfortunately for the Guatemalan economy) dirt cheap. Even my 3-year old host brother drinks it.

Chicken (or meat, for that matter) is usually only eaten on special occasions. Nothing says, ¨I´m a kick-butt lady´´ than snapping your pet chicken´s neck with your bare hands and serving it up in a bowl. Includes a few flavor-enhancing feathers in every dish.

No Joke: When we were in Xela (´´Guatemala´s Second-Most Important City´´), the McDonalds was absolutely packed with people. At 10 P.M.

Pinapples have become a staple in our diet. I even know the ancient Mayan secret for how to tell if your piña is good or not. But I´m not telling.

Guatemalan potato chips are awesome. Probably because of the MSG.

TEMBLORES!!

       So the other night, we were awoken with a shaking house. In my sleepy haziness, I thought a giant truck was passing by (or through) the building. However, Laura is much smarter than I, and she calmly pointed out that it was an earthquake.
      We quickly learned that it wasn`t an earthquake but a ``TEMBLOR`` which loosely translates into ``when the mountain shakes and only the foreigners get freaked out .`` Over the next 24 hours, there were two more temblores, and each was scarier than the first (except the third, which I somehow slept through).
      In any case, we are all alive, the mountain apparently just has some bad gas, but feels much better now.

Although this didn`t hapen, it darn well could have...

Updates from a village in the middle of nowhere.

Hi everyone. This is basically plagiarized from an email to my parents, but I was too lazy to write something new.

We are at the new school, in the mountains. (coincidentally, it is about the same elevation as the last one on the lake). Anyway, it is in a tiny little town. I don´t even think its a town, but a community. The town was set up when a bunch of ex-coffee farmers (they joined a union and were subsequently fired and blacklisted) started a new community. Needless to say it is dirt poor. Every day at 5:30, trucks come through town honking their horns and the men get in to take trips to the cities to hopefully get day labor. They return every evening around 7, with 40 Quetzales (about $5), if they are lucky. Most weeks, I guess the men can expect to actually find work 3 or 4 days. Coffee farming, as it turns out, isn´t much better. If a family picks 100 pounds of coffee beans, they get a whopping 3 bucks or so from the coffee dealers. Such is life.

Every meal, I go to eat at a local family´s home. The grandma is the only one I really ever see- grampa and the dads are off before I get there for breakfast and come home after I´ve already had dinner. The woman is nice, but doesn´t say much. They have a dirt floor and there are constantly chickens running around. I usually eat rice and beans and tortillas, and everything is suprisingly palatable. Laura´s family is more lively, and the kids totally adore her. In fact, the whole town is kind of fascinated with the gringos. There are absolutely no tourists for miles and miles, so we are the only outsiders to come to an area where everyone knows everyone. Today, my breakfast was a little more exciting because while we were eating, one of my family´s dogs got hit by a car. Don´t worry, he is OK. In fact, he is in better shape than their other dog, who has one ear.

We have classes for 4 hours a day, and all 8 or so students live in the school (not coincidentally, 3 of them went to UW-Madison). There really isn´t much to do except read and do homework and talk, and it is totally lovely. Right now, Laura, another student, and I just took a 20 minute ride in the back of a pick-up truck (in spanish ``picup``) to the nearby metropolis of Colomba (population, of, say, 1,000), which is the nearest town with computers. We came yesterday, but the town was out of electricity, so we didn´t get to use the internet.

It all sounds much more rustic than it is. We are having a lovely time. Tomorrow I have a phone interview with a school in Honduras.

Find-A-Gringo

One interesting thing in the touristy areas of Guatemala isthe fact that there is a strong presence of Gringos (which coincidentally, isn´t actually a derogatory term, unless my teacher is totally rude and playing a funny trick on me). There is a street in San Pedro known as ´´Gringo Alley´´ where most of them congregate. Not coincidentally, it is also the only place in town where you will see the follow items: Sunglasses, Tampons, Bread, Women Drinking Alcohol (ok, not technically an ´´item´´), and dreadlocks. However, the question still remains. How can you differentiate between a Gringo and a local, Tz´utu´jil -speaking Mayan?  The answer is easier than you think:

Inventory

We´ve been in San Pedro for about a month now, and I´m taking inventory of things. Here you are:

I´m sure there will be more to come.