In which Mom pays me a visit and many adventures ensue

Buenas Tardes!
I was going to see if I could make it three weeks and then write a giant post, but the upcoming weekend looks like it's going to merit a post of its own (how's that for suspense?). So although this entry will only cover the last 2.5 weeks, it's been an action-packed series of days.

Most excitingly, my mom came to visit me for a long weekend! She flew into Guatemala City on a Thursday morning, and I met her in the airport so we could travel together to Antigua. We stayed with Isabel and Jose, my host family from last summer, and although the bed we shared in our room was way tiny, the accommodations were perfect. We spent Thursday afternoon and all day Friday exploring the colonial capital - visiting ruins, climbing lookout points, having dinners on rooftops, touring working coffee fincas, and browsing crafts markets. For such a small town, especially one that I have spent over five weeks visiting/living in, it amazes me that there are still so many things I haven't done yet in Antigua. It was great to share those couple of days with my Mom, and I think Antigua was a good introduction to Guatemala and Central America.

Here we are on the Cerro de la Cruz overlooking the city:


A nice boy from Tulsa offered to take our picture. Below is a snapshot of our coffee tour vehicle - jostling and jiggling across the plantation definitely enhanced our tour experience.


From Antigua, we took a shuttle Saturday morning to Panajachel, Lake Atitlan. The ride was beautiful, and a bit more exciting than expected, too, as our van blew out its front tire and we had a thirty-minute tire-changing delay. Thankfully our driver was a skilled tire-changer.


After arriving in Pana and checking into our hotel, we took a lancha across the lake to meet up with Scott, Joe, and Emily for lunch in San Pedro, another lakeside pueblo. The views of the lake from the restaurant's porch were temporarily eclipsed by the US-England soccer match on tv, but half an hour later, we were able to go back to drinking smoothies and gazing at what Aldous Huxley deemed the most beautiful lake in the world.


My mom put up a good defense for Crater Lake in Oregon, but as I have never visited the Pacific Northwest, I will have to defer to her judgment for the moment. We then walked around San Pedro for a little while before ferrying back across the lake to Pana. We got rained on lightly during our last 15 minutes on the boat, but nothing too forceful, and we made it back to our hotel in plenty of time to shower before dinner.

Sunday morning, we each enjoyed a delicious and gigantic $3 breakfast of black beans, fresh cheese, tortillas, fruit, and coffee before taking an 8 am shuttle to Chichicastenango's market day. Chichi is the largest artisan market in Guatemala, and the Thursday and Sunday markets are something to behold. My mom and I managed to spend over four hours browsing the streets and streets and streets of stalls, and we also were able to find gifts for almost everyone on our list. The photo below was taken from the market aisle leading up to Santo Tomas church:


We slipped in the church's side entrance, as the front stairs were being used for traditional Mayan offerings and prayers, and we were able to observe a day of baptisms as well as a shaman performing some sort of ceremony with candles, flowers, and water inside the church. Conveniently enough, the rain held off until lunch time and we stayed warm and dry in a second-floor cafe overlooking the market. We took a 4 pm shuttle into Xela that evening.

Compared to Antigua, Lake Atitlan, and the Chichi market, Quetzaltenango isn't really much to write home about from a tourist standpoint. However, it was nice to show my mom where I've been living for the past four months and to give her a taste of a day in the life of an international volunteer in the Guatemalan highlands. Sunday evening, we had burritos, beers, and a cookie at a movie lounge/restaurant (a combination possible only in countries without copyright enforcement) and watched When the Mountains Tremble, a 1983 documentary about the Guatemalan armed conflict. Monday morning, my mom braved the chicken buses and got to see Primeros Pasos. Here we are in front of the clinic:


We spent the rest of Monday drinking hot chocolate, shopping in the produce market, visiting my Spanish teacher, dropping in on my former host family, skyping with my sister, and cooking chile relleños. All in all, a pretty representative weekday afternoon. The taxi came for us at 3:30 am Tuesday, and with only minor hassles, I was able to get my mom onto the first-class bus headed back to Guatemala City to start her trip back to Atlanta. A whirlwind visit, to be sure, but the highlight of my summer so far.

In clinic news, Lee (my education team partner, not my little brother) and I have been teaching Natural Disasters and Rights of the Child to second and third grade classes in Llanos del Pinal. I snapped this picture from the central courtyard of the school on a remarkably clear day:


Even though the school can be frustrating at times (absent teachers, teachers who don't care about teaching, pervasive machismo, 1300 kids running around with reckless abandon during recess, a 4-hour school day with a 60-minute recess, holidays taken at any pretext, etc.), at the very least its natural setting is breathtaking. Actually, my time teaching at Llano has been inspiring in the sense that teachers that do care about teaching are clearly making a difference in the lives of their students. It's evident which classrooms have conduct rules and high expectations, because the students are excited to learn and are generally more respectful to each other and to Lee and me. From a Teach for America perspective, then, it's encouraging to think about an individual teacher's power to positively influence elementary school students, but it's a shame that the infrastructure/corporate climate at Llano makes it incumbent upon the individual teachers to make this choice. The students would be far better off if there were school-wide high standards and expectations - as it is now, the quality of their education depends on the teachers' desire. If the students get stuck in a sub-par classroom, there is no system in place that ensures that they receive adequate instruction.

Stepping off my soapbox, the Natural Disasters workshop we present to the 3rd grade classes is a ton of fun. As a component of our 'what to do during a natural disaster' discussion, the students practice hiding under desks and covering their heads (as they would during an earthquake):


The students also have to practice what to do if floodwaters come:


Clearly, you'd rather be higher up than lower down in a flood situation, so we have the students practice scrambling on top of their desks. Also, we have extensive construction paper visual aids to help us present our theme when we're not shouting "Earthquake!" or "Flood!" as a signal for the students to hide under/climb on top of their desks. Here's Lee explaining how to prepare for a natural disaster:


As for our weekend adventure, Scott and I traveled to Nebaj with our friend Rachelle this past Saturday and Sunday. It took us 7 hours to get there Saturday morning, but only 5 to return on Sunday. As the crow flies, Nebaj and the Ixil triangle aren't far from Xela at all, but there's no direct road connecting the areas. We took a chicken bus to Huehuetenango (mostly north), a minivan to Aguacatan (mostly east), and minivan to Sacapulas (mostly east), and a chicken bus to Nebaj (mostly north again). Though tiring, the trip provided absolutely jawdropping scenery. From Huehuetenango and stretching along the Mexican frontier, the Cuchumatanes mountain range provides a stunning backdrop to the villages dotting the landscape. Scott and I were trying to decide if the Cuchumatanes were the most beautiful place we'd ever been, and I'm honestly not sure. The Greek Isles, Lake Geneva, and the Smoky Mountains certainly have some competition!

We got in about lunch time Saturday and had a satisfying lunch while watching the end of the 12:30 World Cup match. Our guide books informed us of a beautiful waterfall an easy walk outside of town, but the weather didn't permit us to explore. Here Rachelle and I are putting on our best pouty faces in the rain:


Also, heavy rain in a town without paved roads is a lot messier than the rain is in larger cities. Fortunately, we had extra clothes to change into after our drenching, and the rain only lasted a couple hours. Ever the intrepid group of travelers, we struck out on our own to hike through the surrounding countryside for an hour or so before dinner, and the hike rewarded us with even more spectacular vistas over the Cuchumatanes. Here are Rachelle and I, dryer and happier, along a ridge:



And here's a sample shot of the landscape. Look, we're in a cloud!


Sunday morning, we got up early to start a guided hike to Acul, a village just on the other side of a mountain from Nebaj. The whole region, but Nebaj and Acul in particular, suffered tremendously during the Guatemalan Civil War. Many estimates have over 25,000 deaths in the area, which is staggeringly high, since Nebaj today only has a population of 10,000 - and that's a very generous total. Our guide, Nicolas, looked to be in his 40s and was born and raised in Nebaj. He was able to share stories about the interactions between the guerrillas, the townspeople, and the army in the 1970s and 1980s during our hike, and his insight provided far more details and poignancy than any articles or academic texts we had read beforehand.

This is a view looking back toward Nebaj, about an hour into our trek:


And here I am, struggling to catch my breath:


We did a bit of off-road hiking, as well, although the on-road portion of our hike was certainly not up to American National Park nature trail standards. Here is Scott about to start slipping and sliding through a muddy cornfield:


And finally, here's Acul:


The town is much prettier from afar than inside the city. Interestingly, Acul is home to both Ixil-speaking and Quiche-speaking residents. The native Ixil population was mixed with forcibly resettled Quiche war refugees in the 1980s, and Acul was held up as a 'model village' by the national government for the rest of Guatemala to follow. I wasn't much impressed with the Acul's modernity or qualifications as a model town, but I think that reflects more on the government than the residents of Acul. Regardless, it was a beautiful hike and a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning, and the bus ride back to Nebaj took us around the mountain (instead of back over it), so we were able to see even more of the Cuchumatanes and the surrounding countryside of the Ixil Triangle.

After a packed microbus from Nebaj to Sacapulas (Rachelle and I had to sit on our jackets because the heat from the engine was toasting our tushes as we balanced on a ledge behind the driver's seat), a stuffed chicken bus ride back from Huehuetenango (Scott and Rachelle counted 86 people in the bus - that's 3 to a seat and then some), we were ever-so-relieved to make it back to Xela and get ready for our week in the clinic.

The schools in the Valley are taking this Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off to celebrate the teachers, which while nonsensical and unnecessary (in my opinion), will allow half of the education volunteers a three-day weekend. As Scott, Rachelle, and I are fortunate enough to be in this half, we have big plans to visit Semuc Champey, a nature reserve in the middle of the country un-visitable in a 2-day weekend and supposedly the most beautiful part of Guatemala. Hooray!

Hasta luego,
Katy

The Calm After The Storm, or, Birthday Celebrations Galore!

Hola amigos,
Things are settling back to normal here in Xela. Guatemala is certainly still in disaster relief mode, and while the roads are bad, the selection is down and the prices are up in the markets, and generally things are just messy across the city, Xela is more or less back on its feet. The pictures coming in from other parts of the region and country are shocking - the neighborhood fifteen minutes (by foot) from my apartment experienced flooding up to the second floor of buildings, and a community twenty minutes away by bus had several cinderblock homes collapse completely into ravines. The craziest part of Agatha for me, though, is to hear people talk about this storm with the acceptance and certainty that the rainy season is just beginning, and that more heavy rains and/or tropical storms are sure to come. Hopefully we'll have a respite of at least a few weeks.

The clinic saw very few patients most of this week - there was a rush on Friday, but we suspect most community members were too busy evaluating storm damage and repairing homes/fields to take time off to visit the doctor. The school doors in the valley were also shuttered this week, but we'll be starting a series of in-school lessons in Llanos del Pinal this Monday when classes resume. Llano is the largest school in the valley with almost 1300 students, so my compañera and I should have our hands full for the next several weeks. The Education Team is now five volunteers strong and expecting up to six more this week (exact quantity uncertain because of storm/volcano-related chaos in the airport), and I'm hoping at least two more volunteers can join us in Llano so that it doesn't take the rest of my summer to teach the requisite three lessons each to a total of 38 classes. A great deal depends on the incoming volunteers' education backgrounds and Spanish language abilities. We'll see what happens!

Unrelated to the Education Team's official activities, the clinic did play host to one of my birthday parties last Friday. Since Friday also marked the end of the medical students' eight week rotation, Primeros Pasos closed an hour early so we could celebrate accordingly. Along with three different types of cake, the fiesta also featured a piñata Scott bought me for my birthday. Here I am trying to bust it open:



I must admit I was a bit timid in my whackings - the pole that I was given was at least three feet long and I was afraid of accidentally clubbing a co-worker. After the assistant clinic director, women's program assistant director, clinic doctor, and clinic director also unsuccessfully endeavored to break open the piñata, it fell to Scott to unleash the candy:


He succeeded and the clinic staff and volunteers consumed even more sweets. Our dentist graciously said he would be waiting for us whenever our teeth rotted.

That Friday night, Scott and I and a few friends met up at a wine bar around the corner to continue my birthday celebration with a few glasses of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon and plates of fondue. Despite the imminent arrival of tropical storm Agatha, we managed to stay dry and enjoy ourselves enough that my former homestay brother decided to have his birthday celebration there the following Friday. Zero points for creativity, but lots of fun both times. Pictures are on facebook, I believe.

As if two birthdays in a week weren't enough, the little boy from my homestay family turned four this weekend as well. Needless to say, there was a large fiesta Saturday afternoon. To start off the festivities, there was a balloon popping competition. As shown below, the aim of the game is to inflate your balloon and pop it between you and your partner's tummies before the other pair can.



Scott and I were nominated to participate in a gringos-only competition, and I'm proud to say we beat Joe and Carlitos, two of the guests currently living with my former homestay family.

Here's a photo of the birthday boy with all his cousins and neighbors:


The Diego piñata in the background is bigger than most of the niños at the party. The cake was also spectacular and Diego-themed:


Also, in addition to piñatas and cake and paches (potato-based tamales wrapped in banana leaves), all the guests received party favors. Here's Scott proudly displaying his Diego 'sorpresa' - my party favor box was Strawberry Shortcake:


Aside from birthday parties, I stayed busy with Spanish lessons (I'm presently struggling with the conditional), yoga classes, and a European Union-sponsored free movie festival. Since Agatha prevented travel last weekend, the only adventuring Scott and I were able to do in the past two weeks was a Sunday morning day trip to Momostenango, a pueblo a little over an hour outside Xela that's famous for its wool blankets and jackets. Scott has been searching for a chumpa, a heavy wool sweater, for weeks now, so we pleaded with our Spanish teacher to take us to Momos and show us where the best chumpas were. Our maestra's family is originally from Momos, so not only did we have an almost-local guide us through the market and chumpa stores, but we also got to drop in on her 90 year old grandmother who still lives alone in the hills. I can definitely say that our trip to Momos would not have been nearly as enjoyable without Claudia's expertise. The market alone would have been overwhelming - the walkways were far too narrow and the old ladies' elbows far too aggressive for my liking, and Scott and I certainly would have missed the local specialty bread (made with brown sugar and denser than the bread found around Xela).

In addition, just outside of the city center are some pretty cool rock formations. Known as Los Riscos, they remind me of the Utah license plates only on a much smaller scale. This is the view from the street as you walk up:


And here's a view from the top:


And finally, here I am in my conquistadora pose:


All in all, a good week. I will keep updating in regards to the relief/recovery/reconstruction efforts as more progress (hopefully) is made, and this Thursday, I will travel to the capital to meet my mother in the airport as she comes to visit me for a long weekend. Two weeks after the fact, but a much anticipated birthday present nonetheless!