God must know how much I love peanut butter...

Hello friends! I can't believe another week is finished. It was definitely filled with many lessons, both in Spanish and in life.

For one, this past week I learned from my teacher how she started visiting the San Hermano Pedro Hospital. It was quite an endearing, and amazing story. She said that several years ago, she had visited the children's ward at the hospital and had been very overwhelmed, not knowing what to do with herself, being a little afraid of the whole situation. It is understandable; many people are not used to being around children so sick. She told herself she didn't think she could go back, and she didn't. For a while. Later that year, she went with a friend to volunteer at a recovery home for malnourished children. There she met a boy named Jose who did not talk very much and did not like other people touching him or talking to him. He was certainly malnourished, but there was more to it. He couldn't walk and couldn't talk and needed physical therapy almost every day. My teacher volunteered to to his physical therapy exercises because they did not always have a physical therapist there at the malnourished children's center. So she visited Jose very often, and slowly but surely, Jose became much more okay with being around people. Eventually, my teacher found out that Jose had been abandoned by his parents and was being transferred to San Hermano Pedro Hospital where he would probably live the rest of his life. When my teacher heard this, she vowed that she would visit him until the day she died. Ever since, she and her husband have gone to the hospital every Sunday to visit him. On Christmases, they are allowed to bring Jose to their house for the day. It's really amazing because many people at the hospital think that Jose is their kid. Now, because of all the attention and love she has given him, he will let people touch him; he smiles and laughs, even though he cannot talk, whereas when my teacher first met him, he was very afraid of people. After she told me this story, I was utterly amazed. What an unselfish act of love. It's quite beautiful, really.

On an entirely different note, later this week I was walking home from school and I was struck by an incredibly overwhelming craving for peanut butter. For those of you who may not know me as well, peanut butter is one of my favorite things in the world. I have it with one, often two, meals a day. After going without it for three weeks, I think it all built up on me. I actually dreamed about it: how sad is that? The next day, I was walking through Antigua on my way home, and I was looking down while I was walking. All of a sudden, I saw a chalkboard sign resting on the ground that had the word "manteca" written on it. "Manteca" is Spanish (more or less) for peanut butter. I kid you not, I gasped, stopped in my tracks, and marched into the tienda and bought a tiny jar of peanut butter (which cost 5 bucks, probably because it was shipped from the US but I didn't care). It was such a happy accident.

Last night, we had lasagna for dinner because today is my host parent's oldest daughter's birthday, and I guess lasagna is her favorite. It was hilarious though because Rosio, one of the two little girls who lives here, was so funny about it. I went down to get some water and Rosio ran up to me and said "Hicimos LASAGNA!" (we are making lasagna) and she was jumping up and down saying "muy rico" (it's so good!). Her whole face was lit up. And, let me tell you, throughout the whole meal, Rosio was completely ecstatic the entire time, and, even though she is super tiny for a ten year old, she ate more lasagna than I did. I couldn't help laughing, it was so funny. I guess they don't have lasagna very much...

That's all for now...hope all is well with everyone reading this!

Too Much to Say!

Hello, friends and family! Hope all of you are well! Sorry for the long delay in posts...there wasn't much new happening last week, and then this weekend, a ton of stuff happened! So now there's much to say.

My days last week mostly involved going to Spanish school and walking around Antigua. One place I visited is the enormous San Francisco Church on the south side of Antigua. This church was built in the 1500s, so not only is it gigantic, but very very cool. One of the neat things about it is that San Hermano Pedro, the first saint from Antigua (and Guatemala, I believe) is buried there. So this is a majorly important place for Guatemalans, let alone Antigua. I was able to take some pictures, which are on my facebook. But here's a little preview:

Okay, so the outside is a bit worse for wear (this building somehow survived two rather significant earthquakes that turned several other buildings into ruins, though it didn't make it through without a few scratches...as you can tell from the right of the picture), but the inside is beautiful. Alas, I do not have any pictures of the inside. There were signs saying no picture taking, and I didn't want to be THAT foreigner. You can see more pictures from around the church here, and you will get some more of the history from those pictures too. I can't put it all here.

Although my week was pretty chill, the weekend was a bit fuller. Rosa Maria, my Spanish teacher, invited me to her parents' house on Saturday for lunch because it was her mom's birthday. So on Saturday, after doing some shopping in the market in Antigua and picking up a pumpkin pie, we took a bus to San Luis, a town right outside of Antigua. When we got off the bus, it was very obvious we were not in Antigua anymore. The town is much more impoverished. And I was probably the only white person there at the time. This became apparent to me when I was walking down the road with Rosa Maria, who, incidentally, is four inches shorter than ME, if you can believe it, and everyone who passed by was staring at us. Or, me, rather. Everyone was very nice, don't get me wrong. But it became apparent that not many foreigners frequent that town. Eventually we got to her parents house, and I was greeted by a small old lady, which is Rosa Maria's mom. As I found out, her parents live very simply: they have a small stove on the inside of their house, but they also have an outdoor kitchen where they do most of the cooking. They don't have any indoor plumbing, and their sink is outside. Her mom grows coffee in their yard as a way of making income, but her parents are getting to an age where they can't do much more hard labor than that. It was quite different from Antigua, but I was glad about that.

One of the best parts of Saturday was helping to prepare lunch. My teacher told me to go to the outside kitchen to help her mom make TORTILLAS. How cool is that? So I went outside, and there was her mom, so little, kneading away at the tortilla dough and pounding out tortilla after tortilla. It was mesmerizing how fast she could go. When I went up to her, she gave me a hunk of dough and showed me how to pound it flat to put on the hot stove top. So I did. Mine were a lot smaller and oddly-shaped than hers, but she said they were ok! At least they were edible. When we were done, there was a bowl of water by the stove for rinsing our hands. I didn't have a towel so I just wiped my wet hands, after rinsing, on my pants. Well, I was wearing black pants. You can probably guess what happened:

Yep. Floury-water left floury handprints on my pants. Super attractive, I know.

All in all, I was very glad my teacher invited me to her parents house in San Luis because I was able to see a side of Guatemala that I hadn't seen yet, but  had a strong desire to learn about. The house where I am doing my homestay, although extremely nice, is certainly not the way most Guatemalans live. So I felt honored that my teacher was so welcoming as to invite me not only to meet her family, but also to see the reality of life for many Guatemalans.  I was extremely humbled by their welcoming presence. I know that the United States is probably not the most favorite country of many people in Latin America, but they couldn't have been warmer to me. 

The next day, which was Sunday, was much quieter. I went to Mass at La Merced, which was packed, albeit beautiful. When I sat down I was admiring a magnificent carpet in the middle of the aisle. However, when I looked closer I gasped: it wasn't a carpet at all. It was colored sand. I had to take a picture:

It was absolutely amazing. Can you imagine how long that took? So so beautiful.

Later on in the day, I had a couple little adventures. First of all, I went to the store and bought laundry soap to hand wash my clothes. I was looking for liquid soap, but all I could see were different kinds of blocks of soap. Then I realized: that was the laundry soap! They come in packs of three, but if people just want one, then they take one out of the pack and pay for it. So that's what I did. When I told a friend and my parents about washing my clothes in my bathroom sink, they asked for some process pictures. I got one, which I think is probably plenty because it's really not that exciting:

You see that semi-cyllindrical, bluish-green thing on the left of the faucet? That's my laundry soap. I actually quite like it. It smells very good, and is much more practical for hand washing clothes.

The other kinda funny thing about Sunday has to do with Lazario, the parakeet. I had finally coaxed the bird into letting it sit on my finger without trying to bite me, and I wanted a picture of it. So here it is:

She's cute, huh?

So I was standing there, hanging out with the parakeet, taking a couple of pictures, and the next thing I know, she starts walking up my arm to sit on my shoulder. She had never done that before, so it caught me quite by surprise. Here's another picture:

The challenge, I found out, was getting her off my shoulder. I tried to put my finger up for her to step on, but she reached out to try and bite it. So that was a no go. So I bent down towards her perch, thinking she might step off my shoulder and onto the perch. Oh, no. No, she walked onto my back. So there I was, walking around with a parakeet on my back, trying not to stand all the way up because she might start biting my ear or my neck or something. And she can't fly, so if I stood up, she would just fall. I couldn't even coax her all the way down my arm with a banana. Eventually, I had to sit on the ground and bend all the way over to her food bowl, which she jumped onto. I was SO glad no one was home at the time because I looked ridiculous, walking around frantically with a parakeet chilling on my back, enjoying the ride. It was pretty special.

Well, I think that's all for today. There's more to say but I will write more tomorrow so as not to overwhelm everyone. Peace to all who read this!

Happy Feast of the Assumption!

Hello all! I hope everyone has enjoyed their Mondays!

Well, my Saturday was uneventful, but my Sunday was anything but. Sunday morning, I met up with a woman who used to work for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and now she works and lives in Antigua. It was nice to make a connection with someone from back home, even if I hadn't met her before. Just being able to talk about familiar places like Broadripple and Glendale Mall was a little comfort in a place so far away. The cool thing is that she works for an organization that coordinates medical missions to Guatemala. So part of her job is to bring doctors from other countries to come to Guatemala and perform surgeries on people who usually could not afford them. As such, she works very closely with San Pedro Hospital, a Catholic hospital located in the heart of Antigua. This hospital is a medical clinic for people needing short-term treatment, but it is also a place where people with mental and physical disablities live full-time. Oftentimes, Guatemalan families who have a child with a disability cannot afford to take care of him or her. As a result, many of these families bring them to San Pedro Hospital to essentially be raised there. So people live their entire lives at that hospital. It is very sad, though what an incredible service.

When I met up with this particular woman from Indianapolis, we went to mass at the church next to San Pedro Hospital. When I walked into the church, the first thing I saw was the middle aisle and sides of the church lined with people in wheelchairs. Hospital nurses were wheeling people in left and right for Sunday mass. The sides of the altar, especially, were full of small children in wheelchairs. Each Sunday, these same people who live at the hospital full time, who have either mental or physical handicaps, are wheeled in to attend Sunday mass. In fact, most of the people at that Mass were residents of the hospital, though there were a good number of others from the community as well. It was quite an experience, let me tell you. Throughout mass I was astonished by the level of care given to these people, even in regards to their religious faith, which showed in the way many of them tried to sing along with the songs, say the Lord's Prayer and Nicene Creed, and say the proper Mass responses. On my way out of mass, several people in wheelchairs reached out to give me peace. When I took the hand of one of the men, who was in his forties and had a severe mental handicap, I was astonished when I saw him take it with both hands and kiss the top of it. I didn't know what to do: it was completely overwhelming.

On the way out of Mass, I was greeted by none other than Rosa Maria, my Spanish teacher. She goes to that Mass almost every Sunday and volunteers at the hospital next door afterwards. Volunteers at the hospital do many things, but she volunteers in the ward where the disabled children live. So she and the other volunteers do things like playing with the children, feeding them, and simply holding babies in the nursery to make sure they receive the human touch they need. When I toured the hospital a few minutes after Mass, I saw Rosa Maria again, sitting in a chair holding a baby with a small breathing tube. I didn't really know what to say: it was overwhelmingly sad, but beautiful at the same time. I hope to volunteer there, starting soon. It is right in Antigua and my afternoons are pretty free. That is my plan and I will be sure to keep everyone posted.

Today, as many of you probably know, is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven. This is a big deal for Catholics; it is one of the few Holy Days of Obligation. So today, in Jocotenango (the neighborhood I live in), there was a humongous festival in front of the Church of Jocotenango. Actually, the festival has been all weekend, but today it had more of a religious flavor. The Church of Jocotenango is, I believe, called La Iglesia de La Asuncion (The Church of the Assumption). So obviously, today was especially important for them. They had tons of food and games and merchants, people doing dances in the street, and they even had carnival rides. This morning, they had a Eucharistic procession through the streets of Jocotenango, and the rest of the day there was Eucharistic Adoration in the church sanctuary. I spent some time in the afternoon in the church and outside, just seeing all the festivities. There were so many people, so it was very cool. I took a video of some women dancing outside of the church, which you can see here:

Don't ask about the masks because I have no clue what their significance is, and I don't know enough Spanish to ask yet. Maybe in a few weeks.

So yeah, the festival was quite a sight! They are very interested in their religious holidays here in Guatemala. You can click here to view more pictures of the festival.

On another interesting subject, when I was reading the Guatemalan paper this evening, I came across this article:

 Recognize it? It's about the stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis. In the Guatemalan Newspaper. I could not believe it. It was a freak accident that was completely tragic, but I had no idea that even Guatemala would report on it. Wow.

I know this was a long post, so I'll leave you with something on a slightly lighter note. My homework for tonight? Reading a Dora the Explorer book in Spanish. I have to read it out loud to my teacher tomorrow. Here's the book:

Yeah, I feel about two years old. Oh well though!

Much peace to all who read this!

Lazy Day

Happy Saturday everyone! Although this is my first weekend in Guatemala, I decided to take it easy today. I did do a little exploring of Antigua, but not a whole lot. Good thing too because when I got to Antigua, I realized that my camera was out of batteries! So I think it will be better to site-see on a day when I can take pictures.

Overall, my day was not super exciting. I slept in until eight (though I woke up by myself at 6:40, when I normally get up. I guess my body is pretty adjusted to my new schedule!). One quick aside: I don't know what it is about Guatemala, but it makes me want to sleep so much.  I can sleep ten hours, take a two hour nap after lunch, and go to bed at nine thirty and fall asleep right away. It's not even that I feel exhausted all day, either, I just can really sleep! Maybe it's the elevation (I think we are 5,000 feet above sea level). Or maybe it's just that four hours a day of learning a new language really takes a lot out of me.

After breakfast I was able to video chat with my family, and after that, I voyaged to Antigua! I decided to walk instead of taking a bus into town, but I don't think I will do that again soon. It took 25 minutes and I felt like I was breathing bus exhaust the entire time. Gross. I went in the center of the city to find a relatively cheap place to get lunch. I found a Mexican-cantina type place that sounded good, so I ordered a lemonade and a fajita-type thing. Both were delicious, especially the lemonade (fresh squeezed), though I was a little hesitant to drink it when I saw they put ice in it (I've heard it's better to get things without ice because you don't know if it was made with pure water or not). However, this place serves a lot of tourists and when I looked and saw other gringos (aka white people) having drinks with ice, I figured it was ok. So far, I'm doing ok! Thankfully. My entire meal was around five or six bucks (including tip), which is really cheap.

After lunch I walked around the city a bit more but decided to head back home. My host family was out for the day, so the house was pretty quiet. I watched TV in the family room which was HILARIOUS because so many random shows were dubbed in Spanish. For example, I watched "Dan en La Vida Real" (Dan in Real Life), the Bourne Identity, and, the funniest: American Pickers. That last one was definitely the most entertaining.

Ok, so this post is less than exciting, but this next part is: when I came upstairs to my room after it had rained, I looked across the courtyard outside of the house and I saw an enormous rainbow. It was beautiful. Don't worry: I did get a picture of that. Here it is:

Beautiful huh? The best part is that at the same time I saw the rainbow, a nearby festival was playing "Bad Romance." I think Lady Gaga would approve.

That's all for now! Blessings and peace to all who read this!

I Would Stumble Upon a Funeral...

Well everyone, today was another exciting day in Antigua. Yesterday was not so much, because I mostly stayed at home (which was good because it rained really hard in the afternoon). Today, however, I did some more exploring around Antigua.

First of all, to those of you who have requested, I finally got a picture of a chicken bus. Here's a picture of the one I took today, after I got off it:

As you can see, the guy who collects the money from people literally hangs onto the bus as he shouts to people on the street to tell them where the bus is going to next. And as soon as you step into the bus, it takes off. I saw the bus pull away from a lady who just got off and by the time she reached into her pocket to pay, the bus was gone. So I guess she got a free ride that time!

As I mentioned, I spent time this afternoon walking around the city, including visiting La Merced to get some pictures of the inside (which you can see here, just scroll down to the bottom of the album). Although adoration wasn't going on when I was there, a sign said that it was supposed to happen sometime on Thursdays. So, when I saw a man setting up the altar for a liturgy, I figured adoration was supposed to start pretty soon. So I sit in a pew a few rows from the front of the church, waiting to see what happens. The next thing I know, I look over, and there are a ton of people wearing black pushing a casket down the aisle. It was a funeral they were preparing for. I crashed a funeral! I was so embarassed. I immediately stood up and quietly walked past the funeral crowd, many of whom were crying solemnly, and left the church. I felt so bad, but I had no idea! Anyway, I guess it was kind of funny. Hopefully they didn't notice me (though I do stick out quite a bit being young and white. The only thing that makes me fit in is being short! Sometimes it does come in handy...).

The rest of the afternoon I walked around Antigua and visited Parque Central, the central park of the city. It was pretty nice; very touristy though. I also managed to find a nice cafe near the park where I can sit and read if I want. It looks like a pretty nice place. There are pictures of it in my facebook album as well. 

Ok well, I am barely keeping my eyes open as I write this, so it's time to go to bed. It's raining really hard, which makes me want to go right to sleep. Peace to all who read this!

Parades and La Merced

Hello everyone! So today was my second day of Spanish school and my first day taking the chicken bus. Both were quite an experience, let me tell you.

This morning, at school, I learned many different Spanish verbs, which was great because then the last half hour of class I was able to talk to my teacher in Spanish and actually make complete sentences instead of random words strung together. In the middle of class, though, I could hear drums and horns coming from the street and my teacher looked at me and said "Vamos" (let's go). We walked out to the sidewal with the rest of the students at Probigua and we saw a parade of school children marching and playing instruments. Some of the girls were dancing, and many of the boys were playing drums. The parade was to celebrate the indigenous heritage of Guatemala. The music was very well done and the school kids were super cute. It was definitely the highlight of the day. Scroll to the end of this post and you can see a link to some pictures and a short video I took of the parade.

In the afternoon, I learned how to take the chicken bus, so I was able to explore Antigua. Ok, so let me explain: although my school is in Antigua, my house is in a neighborhood called Jocotenango which is on the edge of Antigua. It's a little bit far to walk to my school, so the past couple days I got a ride from my host mom. Today, however, I learned how to ride the chicken bus, which are these really colorful buses that go all over Antigua, and many of them have Yosemite Sam painted on them (idk why...it's pretty weird!). Anyway, you pretty much have to jump on the bus (they don't stop for very long) and it takes you to Antigua. There are a bunch of people who take them and it's pretty cheap. For those of you who might be cringing reading this: don't worry. They are pretty safe. And I take them in the middle of the day in well-populated areas.

One of the major places I explored this afternoon was La Merced, this really cool old church around the corner from Probigua. I posted pictures of the outside of the church to my facebook, but I don't have any pictures of the inside. At the time I visited La Merced, the church was having Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (which was really neat to see...they were praying the rosary as well), so I didn't feel like it was appropriate to take pictures. Maybe another day I will go back. Anyway, it was quite an afternoon! The bus is quite an adventure, as is exploring the city of Antigua. It is amazing how many Americans are here, and many of them don't necessarily go to Spanish school. 

That's all for now. Time for me to go to bed and rest for tomorrow. 

Click here for photos from today.

This is the (very short) video of the parade.

First Day of Spanish School

 

                          My school 

                    The street outside my school.

Hello friends! Hope all is well wherever you are!

My first day of Spanish school was pretty good. I woke up in the morning, had breakfast, and my host mom drove Austin and I to Probigua (the name of my Spanish school). There I met my teacher, Rosa Maria. We began talking immediately and she asked me a lot of questions (most of which I cannot answer; I know a bit of vocabulary, but my verb usage is terrible. Anything more complicated than "tengo" (I have), "soy" (I am), and "esta" (it is) is beyond me. So basically, I speak like a two year old). However, it was amazing how much I was able to understand what she was saying. Believe me, there were many times when I shrugged my shoulders and said "No comprendo" (I don't understand), but despite having only a semester of Spanish four years ago, I did a lot better than I thought. Our lesson this morning focused on colors (yeah, my Spanish is that bad...I only knew azul, verde, rosa, rojo, blanco, and negro. Pretty sad), words for family members (such as "sobrina" for niece, "los cunados" for brothers in law, etc.) I also had to explain to Rosa Maria that I have two sisters named Stephanie. She looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and she said "Tu familia es muy complicado" (Your family is very complicated). Don't I know it. Other than that, we discussed adverbs of place and by the time we were done, my head hurt. Overall, it was a good morning.

I also met a woman from Colorado named Lauren. She has been here for two months and it seems like her Spanish is very good (though she told me that two months ago she didn't know any, which made me feel better. I hope I'll be the same way). There were a lot of other Americans at the school, including a young couple and their two sons who are using their vacation to learn Spanish (which I thought was cool).

This afternoon I stayed in my house because I was exhausted from the morning. While I was taking a nap in my room, I woke up to pounding on the roof: it was pouring rain like crazy. It is their rainy season, after all. I also found out the name of my family's parakeet: Lazario. Why, you may ask? Apparently, my host mother accidentally stepped on it and it "resucito" (resurrected). I thought that was hilarious. The rest of the afternoon I did my homework, which was making a list of all the things in my room using the vocabulary I learned today. It went okay I think. When I started writing this post, I already noticed that it was weird for me to write in English because I got used to Spanish after just a day. I think that means good things.

Well that's all for today. Adios!

Oh, click here for pictures from today. I added them to the album that I made yesterday.

Hola From Antigua!

Hello friends! Well I made it to Antigua safe and sound, thank the Lord. I left this morning at 6:30 and arrived in Guatemala City at 1:20 (3:20 Eastern time). Luckily the trip was mostly uneventful, other than sitting next to a guy from Puget Sound who plays the tuba for a post-rock band.

When my plane finally arrived in Guatemala, luckily I made it through customs and immigration without a hitch and when I walked out of the airport, I saw a sign with my name on it. The man holding the sign is my host dad (his name is Rigoberto). My Spanish immersion began as soon as we shook hands. He can speak English but we did our best to speak Spanish (so there was very little speaking on my end, but I honestly ok with the little Spanish that I do know). After 45 minutes driving, we arrived at my house in Antigua. Currently at the house there is a mom and a dad, their daughter named Julia (who is eleven and, I found out, is obsessed with Justin Bieber. Not only do I know this because she speaks some English, but I could also tell by the four JB posters in her room), a girl named Rosario (who is ten; I know she's not their daughter but I think they said she's Julia's cousin? I'm not really sure but she's cute regardless and doesn't speak a lick of English), and a volunteer at my Spanish school named Austin (he's a young guy originally from Tennessee). Reyna and Rigoberto have two other daughters who are away at university, so they don't live at the house now.

Now let me just say this: I LOVE my house. It is amazing. Basically, it's a house built around a courtyard filled with gigantic plants and a parakeet that chills at their house, walking around pecking at things. Random. It's beautiful. Click on the link below to see the pictures (it's through facebook but it's a public link so you can see it even if you don't have facebook):

Click here to see pictures!

Overall, here are my first impressions of Antigua/Guatemala so far:

• The presidential election is coming up soon and it is insane. There are soooo many candidates and there are posters of them plastered EVERYWHERE. 
• Antigua's streets are cobblestone and therefore ridiculously uncomfortable to drive on. Seriously. Anyone who gets carsick should not ride in a car on those streets without a heavy dosage of Dramamine.
• Someone (I don't know who) likes to fire a cannon or firework or something every fifteen minutes or so. It is really loud and I always jump but no one else in the house even flinches. 
• I think it's funny that some of Julia and Rosario's favorite music is rap. They were listening to rap music on Julia's mp3 player while I was in the living room with them and an Eminem song came on blurting out a bunch of f-words and other types of obscenities. It took me aback that they were allowed to listen to that when they were so young. Then I realized: they have no clue those are bad words. Anyway, it was kind of a funny moment and made me think about all the Spanish songs I've listened to. They could be nothing but variations on the f-word in Spanish and I would be utterly clueless.

Also, did I mention that Antigua is absolutely beautiful? These were from the roof of their house. They have a terrace-type thing.

Oh, hey, in case you were wondering...that ^ is definitely a volcano. Pretty sweet huh?

Okay I think that's enough for now. I'm exhausted. Tomorrow is my first day of Spanish school!