Just 20 more minutes.

I haven't been keeping up with this very well. I moved, like two weeks ago. So I'm no longer living in the second level apartment with that horrible dog who ate all my stuff. Good riddens. Instead, now I live with another little rascal, who doesn't understand that I would like my bed to be dog-hair free. So this is her way of begging me for a little bit of space on my bed, which is in the living room of a house where I now live with three of my coworkers.

Her name is Quinac (pronounced kee-nok):

And she's also a little bit of a pain in the butt, but at least she doesn't eat my stuff.

It's been really fun living here, and I'm glad I made the move. My coworkers are so sweet and I've bonded with them a lot. For some reason, everyone I work with just gets along so amazingly. We've all been spending a lot of time together, and actually we all just threw a big despedida (going away party) at our house last night for me, and three other intern/fellows that work with me and are leaving around the same time. It was a good time, and we had a smurf piñata!

Jealous?

Three friends and I climbed the San Pedro Volcano yesterday, across the lake from Pana, and I don't think anyone adequately warned us about how insanely difficult it would be. If you read this blog all the way back from when I was in Ghana, you may remember this story, in which I describe my difficult journey up to the upper Wli waterfalls, even with an open motorcycle burn wound on my leg. Yesterday was even worse than that.

Sorry for the lame meme, but I kept thinking about this as I was climbing/(dying).

I went with my friends Mallory, Krystyna, and Santi (who is the new intern from Singapore who came this week who will be replacing me when I leave), and I think we all had a rough experience on that hike that brought us together a little more. Oh, this will be fun, we thought--it's just one of those things everyone says you have to do before you leave!

We started the hike thinking it was going to be cake--people had told us that it only takes 3 hours. People are liars. That 3 hours only accounts for the time it takes to climb up, but not down. And that climb up was absolutely no joke. After about an hour, Krystyna and I were already considering turning around. We resorted to obnoxiously singing whatever random songs came to mind, making Santi tell us stories, and asking our guide random questions to take our minds off of how our legs were burning with intense pain and the altitude was slowly making our breathing heavier and more difficult. After a while of that, Krystyna and I started to lose it completely and were laughing hysterically at a story one of us made up that I can't remember, and after that, we kind of just went silent for a very long time, and couldn't take the hike anymore.

I was losing my mind because the guide kept changing his time estimate for how long it was going to take to get to the top. At first, we misunderstood him, and thought he said the whole trip would take four hours--two hours up and two hours down. I was alright with that, until we got to the two hour mark and he told us it was still two more hours to the top. I had managed to keep a sunny disposition for most of the hike up until this point, but when I heard it would be two more hours, I almost broke down in tears right then and there--but I figured we should keep going up and maybe it would be okay.

And it was okay, for about another 45 minutes or so. But all it took was for me to stub my toe, which then triggered a massive cramp in my calf, causing me to lose my balance, as well as start hyperventilating, and it was all over, folks. My diaphragm had a spasm so intense that I actually couldn't bring air into my lungs and I started gasping and wheezing and trying to get Krystyna's attention because I was at the caboose of our group, and she eventually heard me wheezing and came to help me. Eventually my attack subsided and I decided to keep going. We had gone too far to go back and I figured if I just went a bit slower I'd be fine.

My next breakdown came about an hour later when we started getting a little nearer to the top. Every time someone would say how much farther it was, it was always 15-20 more minutes. First, our guide told us 20 more min, I got so relieved, and then like 20 minutes later, we passed a group on their way down who said we still had another 20 minutes. Then, we got to a point where I was sure we were nearing the top, and Santi and Mallory were sitting there on a log, waiting for me and Krystyna to catch up, and Santi greeted us with, "Hey guys! We're so close! Only 15-20 more minutes!" I threw a little tantrum and threw my walking stick on the ground. I was so physically and mentally drained from fighting with myself in my head over whether or not I was actually capable of this, that even 15 more minutes seemed like an eternity.

As we neared the top even more, I started going at basically a snail's pace. I was completely left behind as the straggler of my group, and watched as two other groups behind us passed me with sympathetic looks on their faces. I just kind of sulked in their general direction as their relatively sweatless, non-miserable faces hopped along right past me along the trail, and I wondered what steroids they were on and where I could get some. (Truth is, they probably just exercise regularly, which is something I do not do.) I was then completely alone for a little while after they passed me, until I heard a police officer/park security guard behind me, asking me if I was alright. I tried to play it off for a while as if I was fine, just told him that I was having some difficulties but I'd be alright.

(Note: My mom finds this next part of the story hilarious, but it really wasn't that hilarious.) I started hyperventilating again, which then turned into dry-heaving. My body decided it had had enough and I needed to vomit. Once that whole episode was over, I just sat on the ground and started sobbing and the police officer, I'm not making this up, started backing away slowly from me with a frightened and confused look on his face. It seems he could handle whatever dangers the Guatemalan police force prepared him for, but a crying gringa was the only thing that terrified him. He eventually waited for his fellow officer to catch up with him, and told him that I was really sick and the other guy just looks at me and was like "it's only five more minutes to the top." They gave me an apple, and helped me to keep going, walking behind me saying things like "you can do it, Ana! You're almost there!" and (in a sing-song voice) "Ana, Ana, Ana, Anita bella." And then started distracting me by asking how to say different random words in English. Which made me smile. They were so kind to me. I honestly don't know if I could have made it the last stretch without them. This is the guy who found me, Guillermo:

I creeped this picture, so that I will always remember him as being this majestic.

And of course the view from the top was gorgeous. Was it worth it? Probably not for just the view alone. Though it was amazing--one of those that photos can't do justice:

But I can't tell you how crazy it felt to even be up there, 9,900 feet high, and know that I had just done something that was so difficult for me. (I realize that this would have been much easier if I were better about exercising while I've been here...) But by the time I got back down to the bottom, I had spent the last 7 hours getting to know both sides of myself quite well--the side that resembles the little engine that could, and the side that tells me over and over that I'm not capable of this, and I should pack it in and quit because I just can't do it. But in the end, guess which side won? With the enormous help of my friends, and Guillermo, of course. 

I think it was a good thing for me to do during my last week or so here. It was a huge accomplishment for me, and beat out the Wli waterfalls in Ghana by a longshot as the hardest thing I've ever done.

So now I have to leave this beautiful place in just 9 short days, and while a part of me is ready to go home, I'm also going to miss it here so much, as well as all my wonderful new friends I've made and become close with since I've been here. I feel like being here has been so good for me, and it just feel like I've grown into myself a little more, and become more confident in different aspects of my life.

For those of you who may not know yet, my next step is moving to Philadelphia, to be an AmeriCorps VISTA for a year with an organization that provides social services to low-income Latino communities around Philly. I'll be helping people who may have never had health insurance before navigate the Affordable Care Act as it's implemented in the coming months. I'm very excited--and nervous. But I think it'll be another great experience that I'll be able to learn a lot from, and keep practicing my Spanish!

If anything else exciting happens in my last days here, I can write another post, but for now I'm thinking this might be my last one for a while. I'm so grateful for all of you who have been reading! Love you all, and I'll see you back in the US! (Come visit me in Philly!)

Palomas

I think the problem with only living in a place for 4 ½ months is that you don’t really get that feeling of being home until about 3 months in. I realized that when I got back from Mexico and was like dang, I love Pana too much and I only have a month left…

I loved Mexico too. I haven’t written in a couple weeks though so I guess I could catch you all up on some other stuff first before I get into that.

The mother-daughter trip was a success, and I (gracefully) avoided talking with the daughters too much. I did have to make those little bracelet things with them, but I was mostly translating between them and the artisans the whole time, so I didn’t have to try to make conversation, which I believe was for the best. But everyone was happy that the trip went smoothly, and things have calmed down a bit at work.

I went to Quetzaltenango (more commonly known as Xela) a few weeks ago with a few friends who are also interns at Mercado, and their friends who they met while staying at Doña Angelica’s. We only stayed one night, and then went to some hot springs in the morning, which was incredible. I’d never been to hot springs before, and it was definitely worth the trip. We went in the morning, and drove about an hour up through the mountains to a place called Fuentes Georginas and it was really cool and cloudy and foggy and beautiful, and there was steam from the hot springs and there weren’t many people there, which was really nice. It was really relaxing. Like an outdoor spa. Except I was swimming in my clothes.

And then came a string of bad luck for a straight week when I returned. I broke a key, got locked out of my house in the pouring rain, got locked in my house when I had to be somewhere, completely ran out of money because my bank sucks and the internet wouldn’t work to allow me to wire myself money, and lost my phone. Again.

But since I try to stay on the bright side, all that bad luck made me realize what a nice little community I have here now. When I got locked out of my house because my key was broken, it was 2am and I was standing in the pouring rain and my downstairs neighbors weren’t home to let me in, so my next door neighbor Carlos let me in and made me tea and chatted with me until my neighbors came home and unlocked our gate. And my neighbor Sam felt bad that my key broke and the copy I made didn’t work, so he offered to give me his key and he took my non-functional copy so he could take it to the guy who made it and yell at him for doing a shitty job. I love my neighbors. (But I still hate their dog.) And when I ran out of money, my boss Vanessa lent me enough money to get through the weekend since it was a Friday when the internet was down all over town and I couldn’t wire money to myself, and the banks would be closed the next day.

I’m just happy to have people here who help me out when I get into unfortunate situations. It’s like Vanessa said when I thanked her for lending me the money—“it’s like talking about your poop. We’re all in the same boat here.” And on that note, it really is unbelievable how drastically the appropriate amount of time between meeting someone and being able to talk about poop with them shortens when you live in a developing country. But I digress. I always digress.

This entire blog is a digression.

Anyway—Mexico. Where do I start?

The bus ride there was nice, despite four of the people on the shuttle being some of the most inconsiderate, spoiled rich kids I have ever encountered. The four of them stretched out as much as possible and took up more space on the shuttle than the remaining six of us combined, and they demanded the driver drop them off at their hostel instead of in the center of town like the rest of us, because it apparently was impossible to carry their stuff 2 blocks. It wasn’t hard to tell that everyone was completely fed up with them by the time we arrived 10 hours later.

Anyway, luckily I got to spend the drive talking to a really nice German girl around my age, and an older lady from New York who was really nice as well. That made it much more pleasant. And the older lady helped me out a lot when I almost got detained at the border.

I’m exaggerating a bit—though I was probably far from getting detained, I did have some trouble getting into Mexico, thanks to some asshat at the Guatemala City airport back in May who stamped my passport saying I left the country, so it looked like I had been staying there illegally for over a month. The border officers weren’t buying my story that my passport had been stamped mistakenly, and they were trying to make me pay a fee for all the days I had spent in Guatemala illegally. So the lady from New York helped me out and made them check their electronic records, which were correct and proved that the stamp was a mistake. They let me through and told me I could stop crying now. And then laughed at me. I didn’t appreciate that, as I had only started getting teary-eyed out of intense frustration because they refused to listen to me. But it all worked out.

Mexico was beautiful. It’s a little less mountainous than Guatemala—or at least it’s not all mountains like Guatemala basically is. There were a lot more expanses of flat land, and a lot more space for agriculture, unlike in Guatemala where they have to plant crops on really steep mountains because there’s no where else to grow them.

We got to San Cristobal around 5pm, and I went looking for a place to change my money and to stay the night. I stayed in a really nice, new hostel that was surprisingly cheap. I dropped my stuff off there, and went to go look around.

It’s a beautiful city, though very touristy, which was pretty much what I expected. Lots of old colonial buildings that seem very European, and there’s a big central park with a large gazebo thing where there’s always someone playing a marimba, and a large square nearby in front of a beautiful church that’s yellow and red.

Here’s how I think they built the town of San Cristobal—someone held a contest and was like, “whoever builds the most beautiful church wins.” So like 25 people entered, built all these incredible churches, painted them beautiful colors, and then they put the town square near the winner, and now it’s where all the palomas go to eat palomitas. True story. (Not a true story. Except about the palomas.) The end.

Nothing much else happened on Friday night, except my iphone got stolen, but I don’t want to talk about that because it was stressful.

Saturday was a super fun day. Those of you who remember my friend Maggie from a previous post might remember that she currently lives in Mexico. She lives about an hour’s drive outside of San Cristobal, so she and her friend Oliver came into town to meet me for the day. When we met up, Maggie was like, yo, Oliver’s a breakdancer and he has a competition today, wanna go? And who doesn’t want to see that? It was like one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I swear to god. How does one learn how to breakdance? Some kid showed me what one of his elbows looked like after a couple years of breakdancing and he had a callous on it the size of like, I don’t know what…it doesn’t even matter because who gets callouses on their elbows anyway? That alone is proof that these guys were intense. I can put up videos as well. It was insane.

So after that Maggie, Oliver and I went out in San Cris for dinner and drinks and it was really pleasant. Oliver tried to teach me how to drink beer like a Mexican and I failed miserably. It has something to do with Dos Equis beer, limes, and salt, and not letting the lime & salt get in the beer bottle before you drink it because otherwise it foams everywhere. And I made a big mess. But it was a fun night.

We went back and stayed in their town that night, called Chiapa de Corzo. Maggie lives with a host family and they were very kind and let me stay the night. On Sunday we took a boat tour of the canyon near the town. It was incredibly gorgeous, but there was a sad tone to part of the tour. They show you this cliff, where legend says the indigenous people of Chiapas jumped to their deaths when the Spaniards conquered the area because they preferred to die than become slaves. About 500 years later, there’s still quite a bit of tension and racism between mestizo and indigenous people. So that canyon story provided a little bit of the painful history of Chiapas. There’s a lot of that history of racism and genocide in Guatemala as well that you still hear about in the news all the time due to Rios Montt being on trial for genocide, and then his conviction being overturned and the current government ignoring that a genocide even occurred. It’s really horrible and painful and unfortunately still fresh in people’s memories. I just hope it doesn’t take five hundred more years for this kind of thing to disappear.

After my visit with Maggie, I went back to San Cris on Sunday night so I could get picked up by the shuttle early on Monday morning to head back to Pana. I had an amazing trip—even with how short it was, one of the nicest things was just walking around and enjoying the view wherever I was, taking it all in, and relaxing.

And then last weekend, I went with five of my coworkers to Monterrico, which is on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. It was surprisingly not touristy at all, and got crappy reviews by all of our guidebooks, which confused all of us because it was so beautiful there [it had black sand!] and we had an amazing time. It was great being able to bond with everyone at the office a little more. On Sunday, we also got up at 4:30am for a sunrise tour of the mangroves near the town. So gorgeous—it sucks to get up early, but when everyone’s just too tired to talk, sitting in a canoe in a peaceful, quiet lagoon and watching the sunrise, it puts you in a great mood for the rest of the day. I went back, had some pancakes, and napped in a hammock on the beach for the rest of the morning.

Other random pieces of news—

I finally connected a little bit with a couple of the women across the street from my house who make tortillas. Or at least just got a smile out of them, which is progress. I always thought they didn’t like me—during my time here, I've tried to say hi as much as possible, buy their tortillas every now and then and try to talk to them, but I never was able to get even a hint of a smile out of them until yesterday when I lost my flip-flop in the street in the rain and had to run and chase it as a little stream carried it about a block away. I was also yelling after it for no apparent reason, which made the whole thing seem a little more ridiculous. These ladies saw this whole occurrence, and were laughing at me as I walked back to my gate. All I did was laugh in embarrassment, nodded and just said “mi zapato…” And then when I came back out of my house the next morning, they laughed at me again as they said good morning. Even though all this laughter was at my expense, you have no idea how good it felt to make people smile that I’ve been trying to be friendly with since I moved in. All it took was me making a fool of myself. It reminded me of this joke I saw in a video of John Oliver’s stand up—all it takes is something stupid for people to connect with each other:

http://www.comedycentral.com/video-clips/yrd7p5/john-oliver-s-new-york-stand-up-show-pigeon-indoors

Like a pigeon in an airport--running and yelling after a shoe in a stream got me one step closer to making friends! I'm determined.

Me estoy volviendo loca.

If it weren’t for my budget, I would be SO ready to move out of this house. Yes, it was great at first for the nice roof and the open air and the view, but here’s the reality: the dog downstairs never shuts up, he’s eaten four of my dish sponges, and thinks that me hanging my clothes to dry on a clothesline is a fun game for him to play. I still think there may be rats lurking around occasionally, I stepped on a giant anthill in my yard a couple weeks ago and didn’t realize it until my foot felt like it was on fire and I looked down and it was submerged in tiny black moving things, and last night I walked out of my room thinking “oh my god, that’s a huge moth in my apartm—FUUUCK IT’S A BAT” and sprinted back into my room screaming. My landlord came over promptly after that episode and killed it by smashing it with a broom as I watched in absolute horror. Despite me not wanting a bat in my house, I also didn’t want him to kill it. He also assured me that he thinks my rat problem is actually a cat problem. I’m skeptical. Although it changed my perspective on the problem a little bit—instead of my apartment being a filthy rat den, it makes me happier to think that it can now be a safe place for hungry, stray cats to come for dinner. (Which then made me realize that I’ve finally completed my transformation into the crazy cat lady—although I prefer the term enlightened cat enthusiast—that I’ve always known I would someday become. It was really only a matter of time. Now all I need to do is to stop bathing and start wearing a sack and hoarding stacks of newspapers to use as furniture. Because who has the time for hygiene when there are cats to feed?)

But seriously, I’m about to completely lose it one of these days with all of these animals. I’ve stayed over at co-workers’ houses the past two nights, returning only in the mornings to shower and eat, because I’ve become increasingly overwhelmed with the animals and other various nuisances that have creeped their way into my life.

Oh, Guatemala. Never a dull moment.

Also, I saw a pickup truck flatbed full of gringos yesterday. Pana is a strange place. But I still love it oh so much. (All apartment infestation issues aside.) Last Wednesday was my friend Karyn’s last day at work, and it made me start to get sad because not only am I bummed that she’s leaving and I’ll be the only development intern for a while, but also I now have less than two months left here and that makes me sad as well.

And stressed out because the clock is ticking on finding a real job for when I come home, and my slowly dwindling bank account is constantly reminding me of this fact. But this is an unpaid internship, so I knew what I getting myself into.

Karyn and I, both being unpaid and soon to be unemployed, have been having job-searching and resume-writing parties. How do you make job searching a party, you ask? Simply add chocolate and a box of wine and it becomes much more fun! But is it effective? Not always, because if taken too far, your cover letters end up looking like this:

Dear sir or marndma:

            U shld hire me czu I am the BESTD. THE besSt. evr.

            srsly. plz? m catz need food.

                        -hammr

ps—nailed it.

^^I’ll let you know if I get that sick job at UN headquarters.

In all seriousness though, I have landed a couple of interviews! Which gives me a little bit of hope. We’ll see what happens. If I have any luck, you all will know soon. Or if not, I’ll keep at the search with increasing diligence. Because I have no choice.

Working here at MG is still going well, and I’m really enjoying it. I was kind of excited about that blog post I got to write for the website. The executive director even decided she wanted a version of my post to go out to all of our newsletter subscribers in an e-blast, to which my boss reacted: “OH SHIT HANNAH YOU’RE ABOUT TO BLOW UP.” I love working for her.

Also, the group of mothers and daughters that we have to entertain arrives later tonight in Guatemala City, and they’ll be here in Pana on Monday after they visit Antigua first. Next week will be a little crazy because of that. And may give me some good stories related to my inability to talk to adolescents. I found out that all the daughters are actually in grades 6 through 8, instead of being in high school like I originally thought. This stresses me out a great deal because I really just don’t know how to deal with tweens. And I have to like, make friendship bracelets with them and shit. I’m not even kidding. Good thing I’m not going to be with them for the whole week because I think would explode from awkwardness overload. And so would everyone else just from watching me interact with them.

But seriously, what do you talk to 11-13 year old girls about? Not a rhetorical question. This is something I actually need to figure out before next week, you guys. Any help is appreciated.

What the hell did I talk about at that age? I can’t even remember. Possibly all the boys I had crushes on in middle school that I ended up finding out were gay once I got to high school. Should I warn them about that before they meet the same fate, and end up crushed and in denial when everybody starts coming out of the closet at band camp? I would have found that information useful at their age. They’ll thank me someday when they realize that this gift of knowledge helped them to avoid the path to becoming the cat lady you now see before you.

Other than that, I got nothin.

(help)

semi-legit thing i kind of did

Amigos,

I wrote a blog post for the MG website that went up today! Read it here:

"When you are working with Mercado Global, you see things differently."

El hijo de la gata, ratónes mata.

My parents have been set loose in Guatemala until Thursday. Warn the policía.

Kidding. We had a good time, especially at Tikal.  Last Tuesday, I chicken bussed it all the way to Guatemala City to meet up with them (cost me all of $4 for the three hour ride, but the downside is the muscle soreness that comes from holding on for dear life the whole time), and we flew to a town called Flores and stayed the night there. We left to see the ruins in the morning, and we thought we were just hopping on a shuttle there, but it turned out that there was a tour guide coming with us and we could choose to go off on our own or take a tour of the park. We decided on the tour, to get some history out of it.

It was a great decision because our tour guide, Samuel, grew up in what is now the park area, and so he knew all the jungle trails and shortcuts, which allowed for us to see way more wildlife than we ever expected. Spider monkeys, anteaters (and anteater babies!), toucans, wild parrots, and lots of other cool birds. We even came across a tarantula on a tree near one of the ruins, and Samuel thought it’d be cool to put it on my neck, as he’s telling us about how they can smell your adrenaline levels when you get nervous or scared. Which then started a little feedback loop in my brain because I started getting nervous about trying not to get nervous, which is difficult when a giant spider with fangs is inching closer and closer to your jugular vein. My dad tried it on for size too. I think it liked his jungle shirt I got for him in Africa because it seemed like it wanted to just hang out there for a while.

As for the ruins—amazing. We were able to climb some of them, and the views were incredible. And I think Mayan history is super interesting. The amount of stuff they knew about astronomy back then was insane. And of course, only god knows how they were able to build those temples back then. The mysteriousness of it all is what makes it so interesting. So I’m really glad I had the chance to go there with my parents. And we met some nice people on our tour from California and England—most of their names escape my memory except for Captain John, the 76 year old boat captain, but my mom aptly nicknamed the British people Kiera Knightly, Captain Underpants, and Blondie. Not to their faces, of course... but they were all really nice, and for some reason all really wanted to be best friends with my dad.

Having my parents visit Pana was fun too, although with all of us staying in one room…as the Guatemalans would say, “el huésped y el pes hieden al tercer día.” (Again, kidding. I learned that from my Spanish teacher yesterday and wanted to use it.)

They explored Pana on Friday while I was having a nutso day at work trying to catch up from 3 days of being gone, and then over the weekend we went to the nature reserve in Pana and then went to San Juan, San Pedro, and Santiago on Sunday. It was nice seeing San Juan and San Pedro because I hadn’t gotten over there yet. San Juan is very quiet and quaint, and we got to see a little bit of their Corpus Christi procession through the streets, which was cool. San Pedro is a little bit more touristy than San Juan. It’s a lot like Pana, in that it’s where a ton of foreigners hang out and there’s apparently a big nightlife scene there. We went there for lunch, and then it started pouring while we were there but we had to get back to the boat, and then we went to Santiago in the monsoon-like weather while everyone else was running for shelter. We eventually got back to Pana soaking wet and cold, but it was a nice day nonetheless. Mom and Dad left on Monday for Antigua, and are heading home on Thursday. It was really nice seeing family, although we were of course missing Stephie, and were wishing she could have come too.

Since they left, fun things have happened. Like, I found out there are rats in my apartment. I knew $65 a month was way too good to be true.

Monday night I heard something outside my door, like a bag rustling, and I brushed it off thinking it was the wind or I imagined it or something. I came out of my room not long after and found my loaf of bread had a chunk bitten out of it, right through the plastic. I assumed it must have been the dog downstairs (Chino) sneaking up into my apartment, because he’s done that before, and he’s eaten two of my dish sponges since I’ve moved in, so I wouldn’t put it past him to eat my bread. I went downstairs to see if the door was open from him coming upstairs, but it was shut completely. I hoped that maybe it still could have been Chino, and my neighbors just shut the door for me. Wishful thinking. I left the bread out on the table during the day yesterday to test my theory, and made sure the door was locked and there was no way Chino could get upstairs.

I came home to half of the loaf of bread gone. With bite marks all over it. I told my neighbors, and they think it’s probably rats or an opossum or something. I considered calling Karyn to see if she’d let me stay at her place, but I thought about it and I don’t think there’s any way those little bitches can get into my room. I just have to start keeping my food only in my room and in the fridge where they can’t get at it and always keep the door to my room shut and I think I’ll be fine. I’m just grossed out that they were on my table/counter. Going to start bleaching that regularly.

Also, the rats came right on cue right after my roommate left for a month. I guess they didn’t want me to be lonely? I’m calling my landlord today to see if he can help me with this problem, otherwise I’m trying to decide if this is a problem worth moving out over. There’s a room available at the house where two of my coworkers live, but it’s just that this place saves me so much money that I can’t wrap my head around paying twice as much if I move in to their house. And electricity and internet on top of that. It’s still very cheap compared to rent in the US, but keep in mind they don’t pay me here and I have yet to find a job for when I return home to calm my anxiety about running out of money. So until that happens, I might just stay here with my new furry roommates.

…ughhh.

Espera.

I heard this poem on a podcast that I’ve been listening to lately, and I kinda liked it:

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

  -- David Whyte
      from Everything is Waiting for You 
     ©2003 Many Rivers Press

Here was the explanation the author gave in the podcast interview--

"...and that would be written in the form of myself giving myself a good telling-off. And reminding yourself what is first order, and reminding yourself how much energy you waste at the periphery, which disappears into nothingness, you know? And how much energy which is given at the center turns into this beautiful, surprising somethingness, which is inviting you on and bringing in all kinds of other people into your life to share the adventure at the same time."

Maybe you'd have to hear the whole podcast episode to really grasp what he was talking about there, but I took this poem, and the explanation that came with it, as a reminder to shut off my inner monologue every now and then and pay attention, be more present in my surroundings, and appreciate everything more. I just want to be here in this place, and to try experience everything that it is without having to add in any judgment of my own ability to function within it, or my personal impressions of other people within it. And to let go of any feelings of loneliness that may occur from episodes of cultural miscommunication. It’s all just stuff that’s in my head. And as we all have probably found at some point in our lives, our personal feelings and impressions about places and people and ourselves don’t always correspond to reality. In fact, most of the time it doesn’t. There’s always some distortion. And those distorted perceptions that come from being inside your head too much are often what hold us back from great experiences.

I don’t know if I’m making any sense. But I heard this poem and thought it was a good reminder to get out of my head and let go of the things that don't matter. And I thought maybe some of you out there might resonate with it too.

Thank you for entertaining my more abstract thoughts. I’ll now move on to more normal sounding blog-post type updates.

Not too much has been happening lately—just enjoying the nice weather we’ve had lately. Despite the rainy season being practically here, it hasn’t been too cloudy or rainy in the last week or so, and there were a couple days where we actually had a few good sunsets, which I either enjoy by taking the extra-long way home along the lake after work, or I head straight home to watch it from the solitude of my rooftop.

I finally started taking Spanish lessons. It’s just one-on-one tutoring basically, and I’ve decided to go twice a week, just to brush up on my grammar. To be honest, I don’t think the lessons will help improve my fluency much because it’s a very slow and methodical teaching style. I was a little impatient with that at first, but I think it will help me improve at learning the grammatically correct and incorrect ways of saying things, and then having conversations with people helps me with everything else. So I think it’ll be worth it in the end.

I spent some time with a bunch of Spaniards yesterday though, and oh my god, their Spanish is so different. My friend Karyn, the other intern at MG, has roommates who have friends who live in this really pretty area near the lake, and they were having a lunch party thing on Saturday so she invited me along. The people who live in the house are from Spain and invited a bunch of other Spaniards, and then there were a few Americans, and a few Guatemalans. I realized that I cannot understand Spanish from Spain to save my life. Maybe I could figure it out if I spent some time in Spain, but I’m so used to Guatemalan Spanish now that it was all nearly unintelligible to me. When Guatemalans speak, it’s very clear and every syllable is pronounced and it’s much easier for me to understand what’s going on around me. With the Spaniards, and my coworker Laura from Venezuela, everything sounds much faster, more mumbled, and they don’t always pronounce every syllable so it’s hard for me to distinguish words from one another. I’ll admit it sounds really pretty to hear them speak, but as far as trying to understand them, I gave up after about an hour. Instead of hanging out with the adults, I hung out with the Guatemalan children that were there, because they were adorable and I feel like our levels of vocabulary and conversation skills were similar. So I had a little more fun with that. They were telling me jokes and riddles in Spanish and I tried to guess the answers, and I learned a few fun Spanish puns and then they taught me how to dance. It was fun, and educational. And I had a lot of Sangria and delicious food, so I was content with my day.

Riddle time:

Q: ¿Qué es una comida que espera?

A: Es pera.

Lolz. They had tons of those, but right now that’s the only one I can remember. I probably wrote that incorrectly. I don't know.

Other happenings--I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, since I haven’t posted in a while, but a little over a week ago I got to visit another one of MG’s cooperatives. It was in a really beautiful area, near a city called Nahuala, about an hour and a half by bus from Panajachel. The purpose of the meeting was to get a new community to join Mercado Global. Once again, the whole meeting was in an indigenous language, so I didn’t understand anything that was going on until later when we left and it all was explained to me, but it’s always interesting for me to observe these meetings anyway. I like seeing how things are done out in the communities where all the magic happens, rather in the office, where all I see is donations coming in. When I go out on these visits, I get to see what those donations can make happen, and it’s quite a bit more interesting to me than what I do in the office.

Other than that, right now we’re doing a lot of planning for an organized donor trip to come down for a week at the end of June with their daughters who are in high school. A “mother-daughter trip”, which is pretty cute. I don’t know how much of that trip I’ll be tagging along on, and how much I’ll be in the office that week. I hope I don’t have to spend every waking minute with them, but I’m kind of crossing my fingers for a free trip to Antigua out of the deal, because any activities I attend will be reimbursed. Plus, I was the one who organized the Antigua tour and scored us an awesome deal+discount, and on a Sunday to boot, so I hope I get to go. It’ll be a busy week though, but it should be fun.

But before any of that, my parents are visiting, which I’m very excited about! We’re going to Tikal, an area with a lot of ancient Mayan ruins, for two days, the 28^th and 29^th of this month, and then spending a few days here in Panajachel. I can’t wait.

It’s crazy that I’ve now been here over a month! It went by so fast, as things like this tend to. I miss everyone back home, and hope you’re all doing well. Congrats to everyone who just graduated! Good luck landing full time jobs or grad schools or med schools or whatever’s next—I’m definitely still in that boat with you. And good luck to everyone who still has a semester or two left, hope you all enjoy the summer!

Much love.