So, after a beautiful weekend in Panachel, with only a few hours of terrible stomach pain, and many more hours of Lake Atitlan, sunsets, collaging, and singing, I made my way to Comalapa! Tomorrow will be my first week here. Let me tell you this is a very special place...where should I begin?
Comalapa is just big enough to have everything you need including fast internet connection, a market, several churches, stores, basketball court, and enough streets for me to get lost on. I have been making maps of everywhere I go to try to elimnate that problem, as it is a safe town, but I still stick out, nonetheless. Slowly but surely I am being introduced to people, and I hope that soon there will be enough people who know who I am to look out for me. Comalapa is in the mountains and I have a beautiful view of the town and mountains in the distance from the roof of my home. Me and the chickens up there like to look out (when it isnt raining of course). The town has several art galleries, and apparently I can take lessons if I´d like. All of the women where traditional traje and speak Kakchiquel to each other as they pass on the street. To me they speak Spanish.
My host family consists of David, Aura, little Aura, and Fatima. The two girls are 8 and 6 and are bien chulo...as they might say. We play hide and seek, make art projects, play uno (more uno!!!!), make up riddles, and jump puddles together. Oh and there have been plenty of puddles to jump! David is very active in the community and likes to talk to me a lot about Mayan culture and the history of Guatemala, focusing on the 30 year Civil War Conflict. He is a very interesting man who really cares a lot about his Kakchiquel community. Every Wednesday, for example, he rents a radio station to teach on air about the history and discuss political issues in the world. This is only one of many things he does for his community, all or most of which, free of charge. He left his job working for a corporate supermarket company to do this. I know I´ll learn a lot from him. Aura, my host mother, is gorgeous. She is a stay at home mom that makes the tradtional traje by hand and sells them. They take her about one or two months to make and she charges about 100 dollars for each one. All of the women in Comalapa wear these, so there is a demand. She says she will teach me how to make one soon. She also does hairdos for weddings, baptisms, first communions, etc. I went with her this weekend to help prepare the hair of a bride. Brides here where a beautiful traje with a traditional veil.
This first week here has been great. Our house is new and is still being constructed, some mornings I wake up to hammering and sawing, so it isn´t quite finished. Mostly lacking are the windows upstairs, which can be quite drafty. My room is the perfect size, nice and cozy. Though my first few nights I was freezing, we bought another blanket and I am nice and toasty. I´m also really glad I bought my hand made wool blanket in Xela, it is bien caliente! My bed doesn´t have springs. It is a bed frame with a wooden board in place of springs and a mat on top. I think it is probably good for my back. It is also good for not sleeping in too late, that and the fact that I am going to bed at 930 and my bedroom window goes out to the pila where Aura is up and washing dishes or clothes at about 530 each morning. We only get water from 5 until 6 each morning. The rest of the day we have just a slow trickle, but we save water in big buckets throughout the house to use throughout the day. The water heater on the shower hasn´t been installed yet, so I´ve been taking bucket showers with water heated on the stove. This has been working out just fine, but I did have a sweet dream about a hot shower last night. Our kitchen is a major hang out spot and I have been helping make tortillas...which I still stuck at...and generally preparing for the meals. I´ve been drinking a lot of hot drinks, including my favorite Guatemalan hot chocolate, which is a block of fresh pure chocolate melted with water or milk. My family also eats most of their food very natural. We have milk straight from the cow delivered, as well as homemade tortillas, fresh veggies and fruits, and homemade bread which is bien rico. (They say ¨bien¨here to mean ¨really¨ I´ve picked it up fast) Today I made a meal for my family, stir fry. I figured that was pretty standard. We went to the market this morning to buy ingredients, and I was excited to try out my cooking skills. Let me just tell you the meal started out silent. By the end we were forcing the girls to eat theirs! My host mom even went so far to tell them that if they didn´t finish, I would be sad and go back to the United States!!!! I must admit, it was a little bland. We really needed some soy sauce, but try to find that in a Guatemalan market.
I´ve been hanging out at the school each day to observe how it is run, and I have been to a few meetings to plan the next school year. I really am in love with this school and the founders/directors have a clear and beautiful vision for its future. They want the school to be trilingual Spanish, Kakchiquel, and English. That´s where I come in. And I am going to be involved in the interviewing process for more English teachers. I really can´t wait to start...but I need to wait until January. Until then, I have plenty of people who want me to give them English lessons.
Besides for that, my days have been filled with new things. Games of scrabble, chess, uno, U.S. movies dubbed in Spanish...these are all familiar things done a little differently that occupy my time here. Other things aren´t quite so familiar. For example, earthquakes. We felt a little one during lunch the other day and all went down to the street to be safe. It passed quickly, apparently the epicenter was in Mexico. Another unfamiliar experience, A family came over to ask my host parents to sponser their children´s wedding (to be their padrinos requires buying the rings, veil, and another nice gift) which is quite funny because they get on their knees and pray outloud to God that the couple will accept, making it quite awkard to decline. I was here for this very traditional meeting that was conducted entirely in Kakchiquel. I knew nothing that was going on, like usual, but am pretty sure at one point they were all talking about me. I have become quite accustomed to people looking at me as they speak in Kakchiquel. I assume they are discussing me. I think I had been learn this language.
I have everyone out on the lookout for friends for me. Several mothers have invited me to their homes this week and I am getting hooked up with two girls who apparently like befriending foreigners. Beyond that, I am going to be introduced to the church young adult group. I am hoping that within a month or two, I will have a nice selection of friends for the year. Hopefully I cam make some good relationships with some of them. I am already scheduled for several visits to people´s houses this week. Although often reserved at first, Kakchiquel people are very hospitable and inviting. They call this cariñoso. If I greet someone on the street, I will always be returned a ¨Buenos...whatevertimeofdayitis¨and if in person, they will put their hand on my shoulder as they welcome me to their community usually with a cup of coffee and a piece of sweet bread. I am not going to be loosing any weight here that´s for sure!
Now for Top 5´s and Bottom 5´s!!!
Top 5:
- fresh hot chocolate to dip my fresh sweet bread
- watching movies dubbed in spanish
- using the little slang i am picking up ¨bien chulo¨
- the feeling of dumping the leftover hot water from the bucket over your head at the end of the bath
- all of the possibilities ahead of me!
Bottom 5:
- having no idea what is going on, but then being asked for my opinion. then realizing that everyone is now going out of their way to provide for me based on my opinion, when really i didn´t care that much...just wanted to say something. for example, ¨do you like tea?¨ ¨yes i like tea¨ ï´ll go to the store now and buy you tea¨ ¨wait, what...no i don´t need any at this moment....wait you´ve already left...ugh¨
- when everyone is looking at me and talking about me in kakchiquel....actually this can be quite amusing if i´m in the right mood.
- being bien frio allllll the time. i can´t wait for the rainy season to be over.
- the possiblity of earthquakes.
- awkard awkard moments...alll day long due to my lack of language ability, as well as my general lack of understanding of mayan culture. so much to learn!!!!!
- this gorgeous huge ravine that hides behind a wall on the route to school....part of the wall is missing and i looked to see what was behind it and was immediately struck by beauty and terror! really someone could push me down there and no one would ever know....not that that´s going to happen.
Here are some pics from San Juan del Obispo...my family, my spanish tutor and me, my first chocobanana, and a few from town
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