things my host family doesn´t understand about me

So I´ve been with my permanent family for a month now, and it´s really going quite well... However, there are still some definite cultural differnces that we face. For example...

- Coffee. It is literally inconceivable to them that someone would ever prefer tea to coffee (and by coffee, I mean instant coffee). Even the 2yr old in my family drinks coffee at least 2x a day... I. am. strange.
- At most meals, I am the only one using a fork. Literally all table manners I have learned in my life go out the door here-- fingers and tortillas are the utensils of choice... and never fear if you are talking with your mouth full...
- Mayonaise. There are many reasons I am clearly not Guatemalteca, and my hatred of mayo has to be near the top of the list. It´s kind of frustrating, bc I do my very best to eat (or at least try) everything they give me (including chicken feet soup, stew with fish heads in it, and chicharones)- but I always put my foot down and abstain when something is slathered in mayo... and THAT makes me a picky eater. Hah.
- My toothbrush. It´s electric, so they call it the abejita (little bee), and I also time myself for 2 mins each time I brush my teeth (2x a day)-- and all of the above is strange to them. (Note: Pretty much all my sisters who are my age have lost at least 1 tooth to sugar decay... yeah, I´ll be keeping my funny toothbrush, thanks)
- I´m 22 and not married. All of my sisters had at least 1 child by the time they were 22. Better get on that...
- I drink agua pura... Without adding sugar... In relatively large quantities... Every day. Freak.
- Fleas bother me, and make me worried, and I actively try to prevent them. This is just somehow really foreign to them... which is really frustrating to me. Working on my one-day-at-a-time philosophy on this one.


So yeah... thought you all might enjoy a little glimpse of family-life here-- it´s really great fun living with 8 other people, and sometimes you just have to laugh when you´re the only one washing her hands and using a fork.

bendiciones, juli

this is long, but worth it, I promise.

So if you ever find yourself living with a host family, a word of advice: ALWAYS go when they invite you somewhere, even if you have no idea what/where it is. The first time, this took me to a nurse´s beauty pageant at a hospital. This Sunday, it took me to the ¨coast¨ (I never saw the ocean...??) to visit a sick grandma. How did we get there, you ask? In a pickup truck. How many people went, you ask? Oh, 19. Read on, world, read on.

So we woke up at 4am to prepare for our journey... which meant cooking breakfast and packing snacks, and just generally perparing the troops. We were to leave at ¨5 en punto¨ (actually rolled out at 6:30), after about 20 mins of laoding people and things into the back of the pick up. Now, as I said-- 19 people went-- Let me break it down for you. 2 in the front of the pick up (driver and grandma), 12 adults and 5 kids in the back. Talk about intimate. So let´s also keep in mind that the sun has barely risen, so it´s COLD, I mean COLD, especially with all of the wind. So we are sitting on an old mattress, all bundled together in the back with many blankets and stuff, prepared for our 5hr ride. Yes, 5 hours.

Seeing as we live in the mountains, as we descend to the coast, it gets warmer and warmer (and the sun gets higher and higher), so every hour or so, a layer of blankets/jackets/etc gets stripped from the group. This portion also included 2 instances of people getting sick over the side of the truck. At around 9, we stopped for our lunch break, which included a mass migration up a hill to all go to the bathroom roadside. haha.

At around 11, it was getting really hot, which meant we were getting close, and were off the highway and instead on cobblestone roads and ... oops. Flat tire. Nope, no AAA in the middle-of-nowhere, Guatemala. And oh, sorry- spare tire didn´t fit in the car, either. So. There we are, on the side of the road at a coffee plantation in who-knows-where. Juli´s not panicking, nope not at all.

So the men (2) of the group took control, borrowed a car-jack and removed the bad tire... What now?? Well they went back down the hill to the pueblo to get the tire fixed. Let me be honest here, I had my doubts that there would be someone to fix it, that they´d have the money to fix it, and basically that we would ever make it out alive... Oh Juli of little faith. About an hour (and numerous tantrums from the kids) later, the men returned with a patched tire!! Praise the Lord! Off we went to grandmother´s house again!

We arrived at about 1 to a very very rural (poor) community. Everyone kind of re-introduced themselves to the VERY frail and old grandmother (their dad´s mom) and the aunts, and we waited around until lunch. Delicious lunch... too bad it only took half the time as our trip to arrive...

So, around 4 it started drizzling, so we figured we had better get to going. (Not before I, the gringa, was called in to appraise an antique sewing machine the family some how had...????).

So, we took the tarp out from under the mattress we were sitting on (just in case), and loaded back into the pickup. After driving again for about 30 mins, it starts POURING, so we clumsily put the tarp over top of us... Good. After about 15 mins, it is quite clammy under the tarp, but luckily, it´s stopped raining, so we take the tarp off. This happens a few more times throughout the return journey. Each with varying levels of actual rain-protection.

So we´re making our way home with little-to-no problems (aside from rain), and eventually it gets dark... but we keep going, obviously. BEAUTIFUL stars! At one point we passed an overturned pickup that must have JUST crashed (!!) We stopped to see if we could help (apparently we could not--they were drunk), called the firemen, and continued on our way.

By some miracle of God, we arrived home --all members of the party in 1 piece, more or less-- at around 8pm. WHAT a long day, but SO so worth it. When I´m not battling off fleas or parasites, life here is really quite grand!

So the lesson here: Always say ¨yes¨ to your host family... And also, many things that are extremely illegal in the US are very legal here.

bendiciones, juli


PS: the ¨Chacos¨ here (it was freeezing when we left, so I opted for shoes) are in the middle of nowhere at Finca Trinidad where we got our flat tire.)

address!

Hello faithful followers!
Hope all are well-- Just wanted to let you know that I finally have a mailing address here in Guatemala!

Juli Smith
Apartado Postal No. 142
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala C.A.

---- Very important: Please do NOT send BOXES. Apparently they are much more likely to end up in Guatemala City and never make it out. (Mailer envelopes are the way to go)

I think it takes about 2-3 weeks for stuff to get here, but if you let me know if you send something, we´ll make sure to go to the post office to check the box more often :)

Thanks world!
bendiciones, juli

Xela!

Happy Día de la Revolución!

Well world, I´ve been here in Xela for a week and a half, and I´m really liking it (except when I got sick last week- boo)! I´m living with a family here, and they´re absolutely great! Guadalupe (the mom) is one of the hardest working people I´ve ever met- and 6 out of 10 of her kids (all daughters!) still live at home, ages 24-14ish. Also, 2grandkids live here, so it´s quite a full house- but I do have my own private room, so I get privacy (but not much quiet, haha) when I need it. As expected, it´s been a little hard/awkward to find my place with this family, but they´ve been really warm and welcoming, so that´s been great. I´m learning to tortillar (make tortillas), too-- soon I´ll be ready to wed once they´re nice thin circles... but for now, let´s just say that it´s easy to tell which ones Juli made, haha. Otherwise, we also bond a lot over the telenovelas/ music videos that are on TV 24/7. Especially since my 2nd work project has yet to be found, I have a lot of free time to bond and watch novelas- so it´s not a totally bad thing!

My job is great! I´m helping cook lunch and then sit and eat lunch with the ancianos (elderly people) through a program that the Episcopalian church I go to does. It´s a really wonderful program, because most of the ancianos don´t have family, so they´ve created their own there at the lunch program-- and I´m slowly finding my way into it. It´s a really really neat program- the only problem is that it´s only like 3 hours a day, so I really feel like I have time to do another project, too... so like I said, that´s int he works (hopefully).

This photo is of my street and the bus I take every day into Xela. (Don´t ask me about the ¨Car Wash¨-- I have NO idea what that is-- that´s just one of the English phrases that never changed into Spanish around here, and I have never seen evidence of cars being washed there.) The other photo is a random shot in Xela proper, and my feet are in the Parque Central of Xela.


That´s my little update. Hope all are well :)
bendiciones, juli

Jesus said "Follow Me" 87 times

Hello world, my fellow YAV Tina introduced me to this song, and I'm loving it, so I thought I'd pass it along...
http://www.sirchio.com/index.php?page=songs&family=justice&category=Justice_And_Love&display=115

----------------------------------------------------------
Bryan Sirchio, "Follow Me (87 Times)"

I met this preacher from Australia, He read the Bible searching for its dominant themes, And he counted 87 times when Jesus said... "Follow me."
Well you know that got me thinking, Maybe that's the bottom line of what "Christian" means, 'Cause "I follow Jesus" is deeper than "I believe." 'Cause it don't take much to mentally agree With a set of beliefs written down in some creed. Now don't get me wrong, we need to know what we believe, But lately I've been wondering...

(Chorus)
Am I following Jesus, or just believing in Christ?
'Cause I can believe and not change a thing
But following will change my whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me I'm the 2nd person of the Trinity
But 87 time he said... Follow me

But if I'm a follower of Jesus, Then why am I such a good life insurance risk? And why, when I do my giving, do I still keep so much when so much hunger exists? And if I follow Jesus, then why do I have so many friends among the affluent, and so few among the poor? And if I follow Jesus, why do missiles and guns make me feel more secure? And it don't take much to mentally assent To a statement of faith we can confirm and forget, But following will change our lifestyle if we get it and more and more I'm wondering...

(Chorus)
(Bridge)

Yes, we need to know what we believe, to follow the Jesus who's real
God save us from the Christ's we create in our image (you know what I mean...)
The Jesus who's as left wing or right wing as we, The one who baptizes our cherished ideologies, The one who always seems to favor our side against some enemy

Now I don't mean to sound self-righteous, God knows I've got more questions than answers to proclaim, But its been over 20 years now since Jesus called my name, So forgive me if I'm mistaken, But there's something wrong with a lot of churches in America these days, And I think the Spirit's trying to tell us There's a question that the churches need to raise...

(Chorus)

Are we following Jesus? Or just believing in Christ?
'Cause we can believe, and not change a thing
But following will change our whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me, I'm your first class ticket to eternity...
But 87 times he said... Follow me...
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Cool song- hope you all enjoy it, too, friends!
bendiciones, juli

back from the campo

Well world, I´ve returned from the campo and am back in Xela and moved in with my (permanent) host family. Wow, what a week we had there... We stayed with an indigenous host family in an aldea (rural community) called Pachaj about 35 min outside of Xela.

So Andrew, Tina and I stayed with one family, and Laura and Kath with another. In our house there were 4 generations, and only the last 2 spoke fluent Spanish, and even then, it was their 2nd language-- quite a different scene than gringolandia (Antigua). During the day we had spanish classes and in the afternoon, we hung out with our families... and I´m not gonna lie, world, it was tough. For starters, there was no bathroom- instead, a pila (see below) and a BYO-toilet-paper outhouse (which was right next to the pig pen, so I´ll let you connect the dots on that one), and only bucket baths (with water boiled on the wood-burning stove). The entire community is IN the corn fields, so everything was made out of corn. Tortillas, bread, rags, food, coffee, EVERYTHING... and there was only one main road, the middle 1/2km of which was paved (??), and everything else was super skinny passages through corn and dirt paths.

So yeah. It was really challenging --a lot more so than I thought it would be-- but even so, I'm really glad that we got to experience this facet of Guatemalan life- it reallly really gave me (us) some perspective on farm-life, immigration, poverty, and rural Guatemalan life in general.


bendiciones, juli

nisperos!

It´s nispero season, world!

What´s a nispero, you ask? It´s a little fig-sized orange fruit that grows on trees here. I think they taste like sweet kiwis-- but they have 3-6 big seeds inside (which you don´t eat). Also, you have to peel off the peach-like skin. They´re yummy.

Allegedly they only grow in Guatemala, Brasil, Japan, and Spain (talk about random places)... and apparently ¨all¨ of Guatemala´s nisperos come from the little town where we´re staying... so tinseltown is all atwitter. My fam has gone up ¨into the hills¨ multiple times to collect baskets and baskets of nisperos from the trees, and then they have someone that will sell them in the market in Antigua... seems pretty common that most people here have this little side-business during the cosecha (harvest time) of oct-dec. This also means that in Xela it will be a lot harder to find them... so my Spanish teacher said I should eat as many as I could before I leave (bc surely my life has been changed now that I´ve tasted this sacred fruit)...

So that´s just a little seasonal update from me to you, world.
bendiciones, juli