a trip to the circus

Oh yes, you read right, world -- I went to the circo this past weekend with my host brother and his 3 kids. Why yes, they do have circuses in Guatemala, but let me tell you-- It was no Barnum & Bailey...

So first off, I was somehow picturing a fair or a petting zoo or something, but no- This was the real deal. ´Big top tent´ and all. The show included but was not limited to... 2 little people, 2 strippers, several minors, 2 monkeys, 1 llama, 1 pony, and approximately 3 actual acrobats. Let me give you the play-by-play...

Act 1: Trampoline by 2 little boys and 2 little people (1 inexplicably dressed as a devil??), supervised by 2 random guys. Umm.. Impressive because I couldn´t do what they did... Buutt that´s not saying much.

Act 2: Clown named Hamburguesa. Annoying / creepy.

Act 3: Flying wrap-yourself-in-fabric man. This one was legitimately really cool... Especially because everytime the guy went up in the air, it was because a man, a boy, and a little person were pulling on the rope to make him fly. Yep.

Act 4: Clown again. This time my host brother´s kids went up as volunteers to leap frog with the clown.


Act 5: Man in steel wheel. This one was legitimately cool, too-- He spun around in all different directions

Act 6: Clown with unicycle. Uhhh... ?

--Intermission--

Act 7: Strippers. Yep, that´s good for the kiddos. Maybe I´m exaggerating, but they were essentially wearing underwear and ¨dancing¨ to Cintura Sola. I was uncomfortable.

Act 8: Really young and flexible girl. She was pretty impressive... and also like 8. I tried not to think of a life as a little girl in the circus.

Act 9: A very sad monkey came out on a leesh with Hamburguesa the clown. He didn´t really do much, but the kids loooved him.

Act 10: This time Hamburguesa came out with a pony. Again, just walked around a bit, but then he got some audience members (again, my host cousin) to ride the pony.






Act 11: The Grand Finale! Hamburguesa with a llama. Why a llama? Well why not?! Oh, and one more thing- The monkey was riding the llama. That´s not something you see every day. So very bizzarre.

And that was pretty much the whole show. It was a little bit of everything, to say the least. And I´m glad I could go... but I don´t know that I ever want to go to the circus, in Guatemala or elsewhere, again.

bendiciones, juli

Guatemalaisms

Si Dios quiere (if God wants)
Primero Dios (literally, ´God first,´ but understood as ´God´s plans first´)
A ver que dice Dios (we´ll see what God says)
Si Dios me presta la vida (if God lends me the life)

These are a few of the many super common Guatemalaisms that I have come to love this year. Why? Because I love the way that in making any plans (See you tomorrow, Let´s have lunch, I´ll be right back...), most Guatemalans will add in ¨See Dios quiere¨ or ¨Primero Dios¨ -- reminding me that, no matter what plans I feel I can make and commit to, God always has the last word.

For example, my fellow YAV, Katharine, got appendicitis about 5 weeks ago and had to have an emergency apendectomy here in Guatemala. Everything turned out pretty much fine after about 2weeks straight in bed healing. She had classes to teach and exams she´d planned to adminster, but nope! Didn´t happen, because God´s plans came first.

I feel that God has been constantly teaching and re-teaching me this year that my life is not my own, my plans are not my own, and that God is bigger than anything I can even imagine. Lots of stuff didn´t turn out the way I thought it should this year, but that´s okay, because God gave me different / even better adventures. As I finish my last 3 weeks here, and prepare to be thrust back into the US, to my parent´s house in Alexandria for 3.5 weeks, and then to start brand new adventures in San Antonio, I´m trying to adapt the ¨Primero Dios¨ mentality. I have things I want to do to round off this year, and things I want to do once I back to Alexandria-- but the Primero Dios mentality tells me that I can make plans, of course, but need to gracefully accept when they don´t quite turn out as I had expected, because God had something better in mind. Grace in flexibility - Yes, world, that´s a hard one for Juli to learn.

Hope you have a great weekend, world. See you stateside in about 2.5 weeks (primero Dios)
bendiciones, juli

Also, for more on Katharine´s all-star-ness, read her blog! http://www.katharinecurles.blogspot.com/

¨If you are appalled by what you see here, please don´t try to start a revolution for us- a revolution from which you can flee when the real bullets start flying. If you really want to help us, go back to your own country and work to change the policies of your government that explot our country and keep our people so poor.¨
- - Dom Hélder Câmara, archbishop of Recife, Brasil- probably the poorest part of South America

cooking lessons

So as my time here draws to a close, so does my exposure to the yummy (and yeah, sometimes not so yummy) foods my host mom makes. One of the things at the top of the List of Things Juli Misses About the US is cooking/ having choice in what I eat.. but there is something 'exciting' about coming to the lunch table and having no idea what food I might be served. From tripe (why yes, the very stomach lining same that was featured in a Chilean blog.!) to fried chicken - I've gotten to try it all here, for better or for worse.

Anyway, in light of this, I have been asking my host mom to teach me how to make some of my favorite dishes. First, she taught me the most typical Guatemalan food, Pepián, which took about 290982 hours to make. Then, she told me how to make beans (which we eat at least 2 meals a day every day, so it was important to learn her secrets). This past week, she taught me how to make one of my favorite things- Chuchitos, which are a lot like Mexican tamales (corn dough stuffed with tomato-based sauce and a chunk of meat, wrapped in corn husk or banana leaf). Yummy!!!
NOTE: By "taught," I mean that she rambled off very vague recipes and quantities, and then let me "help" cook them. :)

So faithful readers, I am going to impart this sacred chuchito knowledge on you.

First, cook tomato (2 lb of very red tomato), miltomate (10), and chile pepper (1 of your choice) in a pan. Let this mixture sit to cool and put it all in the blender. (No, we don't have a functioning fridge or a microwave, but of COURSE we have a blender! OOoh, Guatemala.) Blend it well, adding salt to taste- but don't let it get too watery. This is now called recado.

Now put the recado in a pan with about 2oz of lard (yeahhhhh this is when I got less excited about eating chuchitos all the time...), a pinch of sugar (this IS Guatemala, after all), a heaping tablespoon of consumé, and salt to taste. Stir this all together in the pan, and let it boil for about 30min.

To make the masa (dough), take 2lb of corn flour (or boiled, ground-up whole corn kernals if you have them sitting around) and add cold water until it becomes a doughy-paste, about 1/2lb of melted butter (or lard), and salt to taste. This is the masa.

Now the fun part; Assembling the chuchito. I have to admit- my chuchitos are never going to win any beauty awards, but they were yummy, and, well, let's be real- that's all that matters.

Now, take a golf-ball shaped ball of masa and mush it flat (or make a tortilla if you can), making a little bowl-home and scoop in the recado and a chunk of raw meat (chicken or pork or beef or whatever). Fold out a corn husk in front of you, and carefully put the masa bowl upside-down on the corn husk. Fold the sides of the husk in, the top toward the bottom, and tie a little corn-husk bow around the top to make it stay together. I wrote that all in 1 simple sentence, but believe me -- this is when the men are separated from the boys. Not easy, world.

Put all of your chuchitos (in our case, 78) into a huge pot, fill it until about 1in below the level of the chuchitos, and let it boil on your wood-fire stove with strong fire for about 1.5hr.

And there you have it, about 4 hours later-- you have a hot delicious treat!

Buen provecho, world!
bendiciones, juli

a volcanic ascent

Brodie is here!! Wahoo!!

Last weekend, we took advantage of a sunny morning to go 1.5 hours away to the Volcàn Pacaya to have a little hike. It`s been on my Guatemala Bucket List to hike a volcano, and I finally got to do it- It was amazing!





It took about 1.5 hours to summit (and, I`m not going to lie, it was a bit harder than expected) with a guide and our very motley crew. We had some Mennonites in Birkenstocks (who ended up going up on burros), some 60ish year old Swiss people, 3 very speedy Israeli girls, and a guy in a sports coat and loafers. What a team!








On the way up, we passed through lush greenery and saw amazing views of surroudning volcanoes, farmland, small towns, and God`s amazing creation. It was a bit steep, but such amazing views! Once we got to the top, it seriously seemed like we were on the moon! Totally barren, black volcanic rock everywhere with tons of steamy rocks everywhere- I felt very NASA-- It was so cool! Sadly, because this is the volcano that errupted last May, there isn`t much more lava to see, and tourists are no longer allowed to go right up to the crater (yeah, I think that`s a good call...), but it was still COMPLETELY worth it!




At the top, we went into a natural cave that was heated by VERY hot volcanic steam -it felt just like a sauna!-and, yes, we did use it to roast marshmallows!!! What a cool experience! Best of all, I got to do it with my best friend!

bendiciones, juli

future!

I'm going to San Antonio next year!! I'll be serving as a YAV again in this city, hopefully working with Latina women who are victims of domestic abuse/ rape.

I'm so excited to take this opportunity to continue to work with Latin American people, to learn about injustices in my own US context, and to work with women!

Please continue to pray with me as I finalize my job placement, fundraise again, and close my Guatemala chapter.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support, world!
bendiciones, juli

playing in God's creation

So I've been helping to facilitate a group of 4th year pharmacy students for the past 2 weeks from Texas Tech (and really enjoying it) and this Sunday, we took an especially special Sabbath day to relax and play.

My fellow YAV, Laura, had told me how cool it was when she went, but I tried not to get too excited, lest it not live up to the hype. Well, I got to go to Semuc-Champey with the TX Tech group, and seriously, world-- it's on my Top 10 Coolest Moments of Juli's Life list.

So we start by taking a very death-defying 30ish min pickup ride (as in, standing in the bed of the truck) from the hotel to the miiiiddle of nowhere. Surprise! We've arrived! So we pay and go on a "short hike" (which was pretty much completely straight up... Thank goodness for the Chacos, bc some people were wearing flipflops..) to the lookout place where you can see all of Semuc Champei ("Hidden Waters Under Rocks")-- the huge rushing river that goes underground for 900m and then pops out on the other end... where the river goes underground, there are maybe 15-20 turquoise limestone pools of different sizes, depths, and sizes. DANG, our God is great.

We soak in the view and catch our breath for a bit, then start the descent (keep in mind it is very much rainy season-- aka everything was VERY muddy and slippery) and after at least an hour total of hiking, we reached the water. Our guide took us to see where te gushing water goes underground (many people have died there; oh great thanks) and then we played in the 1st pool for a while... Which we thought was cool until...

We went down to the other pools and got to swim, dive, cliff jump, waterslide, and just play around in this amazing natural waterpark. The water was SO clear and beautiful, and it was miraculously sunny-- just SO beautiful!! After about an hour, we got to the very end of the pools where we could see te river shoot out again! We thought that was awesome, until...

Then, our guide took us into a little mini-cave, where we literally had to point our faces upwards in the like 3inches of air between rock ceiling and water-level... Once we (terrifiededly) got to the end of that, we swam underwater to the light to get out of the cave. I mean, SERIOUSLY?!?! So awesome!!

Then we made our way back to the first pool to meet up with the non-swimmers in the group and have a much-less-strenuous hike back to the entrance for our picnic lunch.

Man, God is amazing!!!
Bendiciones, juli

ps: photos definitely coming soon.