Rompiendo la cáscara

I feel really good after this weekend. I had a friend come stay with me for a couple of days, and it was like a breath of fresh air. Her name is Maggie and she was in town visiting so she could renew her visa because she’s currently living in Mexico. While I don’t actually know her very well (we have mutual friends from Madison, but had only met a couple of times,) it was nice having someone around who also really wants to learn and experience things in a new culture—rather than just the expat culture, which is kind of its own little world around here. She was really fun to have around to go exploring with me for the weekend, because she’s a lot more outgoing than I am, which helped me to realize that it’s okay to get out of my shell a little bit and stop being so fearful of talking to people. 

For the past few weeks, as much as I have been enjoying Guatemala so far, I’ve felt kind of in a funk because I’ve been trying and failing to establish connections and acquaintances in the area here who are from Guatemala—not just fellow foreigners. It’s been kind of hard for me. For those of you who know me really well, you know that I can be really shy and I really have trouble taking initiative in social situations and being the first one to reach out and make a connection. Since I’ve been here, this has definitely been a hindrance to me as far as meeting local people because not only are they strangers, but there’s also the chance that they might judge me for my Spanish skills. It was nice having Maggie around because she’s been living in Mexico for a few months now, and seems almost fearless and very willing to embrace the culture of whatever place she finds herself in—more so than some of the Americans that I know here. I share that same desire to just dive in, but sometimes I get so caught up in my head worrying about how I’m perceived by Guatemalans, that it’s easy for me to forget that despite the difference in culture, in many ways, people are really the same everywhere, and all you have to do to make connections with people is to say hello and ask them a question. About anything, really. And as much as I get hung up on my language skills, I’m really trying to let go of the fact that my Spanish isn’t perfect. Of course, if I don’t practice, I’ll never get better. And if I put myself in their shoes, I can realize that if a foreigner in the US was trying to talk to me in broken English and said something incorrectly, I would never judge them for it because they’re trying their best. All I can do is hope that people are patient with me, and if that’s not the case, then I have to let it go and forget about it.

So anyway, Maggie and I spent the weekend just hanging out around Pana, mostly just eating and people-watching and exploring. On Saturday, we went across the lake to Santiago. It’s another town about the size of Pana, and it was pretty cool. There was this statue to a Mayan deity called Maximón there, and when you first get off the boat in Santiago, a bunch of kids and teenagers kind of swarm around you wanting to take you there for 5 quetzales, and we wanted to go looking for it on our own so we wouldn’t have to pay, but after a while we gave up and found a little kid who we paid to take us. It was kind of awesome, because it’s a saint that drinks hard liquor and smokes cigars, and while they were performing a ceremony, they were lighting cigars in its mouth and drinking beer and jack daniel’s. Pretty sure all of the Shamans there were drunk. But it was a pretty cool little ceremony to watch.

The rest of the day we just wandered around and hung out in Santiago, eating things like patín, which is like meat smothered in tomato salsa wrapped in a banana leaf, and ice cream that tasted like horchata, and whatever else we could find. Then we went back to Pana and walked around near the lake, sort of near my neighborhood. We found a family playing basketball and soccer and they invited us to join, so we did and it was really fun! The only time I ever enjoy sports is if I’m playing with people who aren’t competitive and either don’t care if you suck, or are also not that good at sports. It was just like their family fun day, and it was really nice of them to let us join. We made friends with them, and have been seeing them around town since then. Actually, a couple of hours after we played basketball with them, we walked into an empanada shop and saw one of them there—turns out his mother owns it. The empanadas were amazing, and now that I sort of know the people that own it, I will probably soon be a regular there.

And that’s what I’m talking about when I say it's easier to meet new people and make connections when you’re not all by yourself. For me, it takes the pressure off when talking to people for the first time. By myself, I maybe wouldn’t have accepted an invitation to play sports with a bunch of strangers. But now that Maggie left to go back to Mexico, I’m going to try to keep up the momentum from the weekend and keep trying to get out there and keep talking to the people we met and talked to for a while—like Maria and Maria, the two ladies who make tortillas across the street from my house every day. I might just go buy tortillas every day even if I don’t need them. It’s just nice to have acquaintances around town, so that you can start to feel some sense of belonging, and some sense of feeling at home. Even though I’m not going to be here all that long, it’s important to me to have that feeling so that I don’t get as upset when I have those experiences that remind me that I’m a foreigner.

Anyway, so there’s kind of the run-down on my emotional state since I’ve been here. Long story short, I’m going to try to get past the fear of people judging me as I’m trying to live in a new place. I went through this same process when I was in Ghana, and I guess I mistakenly thought because I went through it once, I could bypass it this time. Or maybe I just forgot what it feels like. But I’m learning that it’s always going to be a new process because I’m in a completely new and different place. But it helped to have someone here for the weekend to hang out with me and also serve as an example of how to break out of one’s shell in a new culture. If I try a little harder, I think that things will start to get a little better from here on out.

(Don't) grill me a cheese.

All moved in to my new place. I know I keep promising pictures, but honestly I keep forgetting to bring my camera to work to upload them so I’ll stop making empty promises with the word ‘soon’ in them. One of these days I’ll get to it. Maybe.

Roommate situation is okay so far. In the past couple of days, there have only been some slight annoyances and one significantly more aggravating incident involving a burnt grilled cheese sandwich, but I will spare you the details, because I might just get angry again. Hopefully there won’t be too many problems. It kind of feels like freshman year of college again, this whole moving in with a stranger business. (At least it worked out the first time around! Shout out to Alex, and happy birthday on Sunday!) But who knows what I got myself into this time… he seems nice enough, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. For those of you who may be worried that this situation presents a safety concern, worry not. All of my lovely, intelligent coworkers know this dude and could assure you that he’s harmless.

Things at work are still going well. Not much new there. Although there was some slight drama in the office the other day involving someone at the New York office. I don’t actually know what exactly went down, but everyone was a super tense all morning and I didn’t like it. Normally everyone’s really chill and eating junk food and making fun of each other. That’s the type work environment that I like. It suits me.

Other stuff…yesterday I ate a falafel sandwich that I bought at a German bakery in Guatemala. Globalization, guys. It’s really a thing now.

I bugged my boss yesterday (politely, of course) about going on another community visit. Looks like I’m going to get to go to another one sometime in May. And she wants me to write a blog post for the MG website. So once that’s up, I will notify you all to look for it there! Exciting stuff, kind of.

Still haven’t found a way to crack those macadamia nuts. Although I’m afraid of improvising again because I might seriously injure myself. I’m open to suggestions (unless the suggestion is a crack-a-mac—that is not exactly a common household tool, Mom). I don’t have proper kitchen utensils for this. These horrible things have shells made of steel, I swear to god. Never again will I be bamboozled by street vendors. I’m learning by trial and error every day.

I’m just going to go ahead and apologize for the lack of super-interesting things in this post, and in other posts... This is not your typical travel blog, and I am very aware of that. I’m trying to think of more intelligent-sounding observations for this blog without also making it boring, but honestly I feel surrounded by Americans lately, and I’m trying to figure out a way to change that. I’ve lost track of my Guatemalan friend David, because he doesn’t have a cell phone so I can’t make plans with him. And I need to practice my Spanish, because the most Spanish I’ve spoken all week was when I went to the plastic store today (yes, the plastic store) to buy a bucket. Sometimes I also try to chat with the bartenders at the bar I frequent. (They think my name is Hannie. I haven’t bothered to correct them because my sister calls me that sometimes and I miss her, so I just let it happen. Love you, Stephie!) Anyway, I’m going to ask my coworker to take me to the place where she takes Spanish lessons, and I’m signing up ASAP. I refuse to face the pathetic irony of getting worse at Spanish while spending 4+ months in Central America. I could keep a second blog in Spanish, but I’m not going to do that because that’s more work for me, and also it would definitely sound like a four year old wrote it, and no one would read it.

How about I leave you with another helpful Guatemala tip of the week, dear readers?

--Never trust a dog with your laundry. No—never trust a dog with anything.

[too lazy to come up with post title]

It feels like so much has been happening in these first couple of weeks here. We’ve been pretty busy at work since I’ve arrived because of a big event coming up in two weeks in Silicon Valley, where Mercado Global’s largest donor base is. Basically, it’s kind of a schmoozing event for current donors to invite their friends and hopefully capture some new donors by letting people know what the organization’s all about. So I’ve been simultaneously trying to learn how everything is done around the office and also help them prepare for this event. Both of my bosses are flying up to California next week to attend.

Other fun things—I went on my first community visit yesterday to meet two of the artisan cooperatives that MG works with in San Jorge, about a ten minute chicken bus ride away. (Chicken bus: a very crowded, very colorful school bus. I will post pictures of these.) The purpose of the visit was health training—talking about hygiene practices and other health stuff. So Barbara, who is one of the Guatemalan women that works in our office, brought me and my other new coworker along to observe the training. We introduced ourselves in Spanish to the women, but after that, the entire training was in their indigenous language, so we couldn’t understand most of what was said, except for when a Spanish word was thrown in here and there. It was interesting though, and I was glad I went along. I hope I get to go on more of those visits in the future, but for now work is going to be mostly entering a bunch of donations after this crazy Silicon Valley event is over, and drafting donation acknowledgement letters and all the other fun things that interns get to do.

Also, last Sunday I decided to venture out of Panajachel on my own for the first time! Like I mentioned in my first post, they have these pickup trucks that stop on this main road every 15 minutes or so, and you just ask where they’re going and hop in. So I decided to go to San Antonio de Palopó, hopped in the back of the truck and I was there about 20 minutes and 5 Quetzales later. It’s a really quiet, really pretty town. I was only there for a few hours, just walking around. They have a really nice church there that I went and sat in for a while just to get some shade and relax. And there’s a beautiful view just as you walk outside the church. I went down to the lakeshore and just sat for a while, and walked around a bit. Until this creepy guy started following me around and asking me to marry him and live at his house and wouldn’t leave me alone for the longest time, even after I snapped at him, so eventually I just left and went back to Pana. Besides the annoying dude, it was a nice, relaxing day.

In other news, I’m moving out of Doña Angelica’s house this coming Sunday so I don’t have to pay for a third week here, because it’s too expensive. I found an apartment! It’s not actually in Panajachel, I don’t think. Technically it’s in Jucanyá, which I’m not sure is a separate town or not… But the place is a 15 minute walk from the center of Pana, so it’s not too far. I found the apartment listing on a community bulletin board at a store that’s basically like the wal-mart of this town. It didn’t have any pictures or names on the sign. It was just a plain piece of paper that said (in Spanish): “two rooms for rent in Jucanyá” and then listed three phone numbers. Seemed legit enough to me, so I gave all three of those numbers a call until I got ahold of someone, who told me to take a tuk-tuk (taxi) to Calle Salpores and someone in a green shirt would meet me there. Again—legit.

It was a lady named Luisa, who was very kind and showed me the two rooms. They’re on the second floor of a three-level house that is unfinished because there’s nothing on the third level. On the plus side, this means extremely easy roof access with a decent sunset view in the evening, as I saw for myself. You can even almost see the lake, but there are a bunch of trees in the way. Anyway, one of the rooms was empty except for a bed, but the other was full of stuff that the last tenant had left behind because he was only there for a couple months. So there was a bed, two shelving units, a table, a stove and gas tank, a pure water dispenser, a ton of dishes, and even sheets and a blanket, so I only have to just wash everything and I’m set. Talk about furnished, right? I mentioned the place to the guy from New York who’s also living at Doña Angelica’s, and he decided he’s going to take the second room and split the rent with me, so it’ll be about 500 Quetzales a month each, which is like somewhere around $70. Wayy less than I expected to be paying for rent here, so I’m thrilled about that. It’s less than he and I have been paying per week to stay at Doña Angelica’s. As much as I’ll miss Lorenzo and Jenny’s adorable kids, and the chocolate pancakes they made me for breakfast yesterday, I’d rather not pay so much money to stay here.

So, after that whole process, I was kind of proud of myself. It wasn’t a huge accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but it’s the little victories that keep you going, right? Or just figuring out you’re capable of things you haven’t had to do before. Like finding an apartment in Pana all by myself, and realizing that I have a Spanish vocabulary that’s at least just enough to be able to find a decent apartment for super cheap.

Anyway, the next challenge will be trying to fit my suitcase into a tuk-tuk when I move on Sunday. I’ll put up a picture and you’ll see what I mean.

Things you should know when traveling to Guatemala, based on my first week of awkward/embarrassing situations.

In the US, I think on average I have about 1-3 awkward things happen to me on a daily basis. In Guatemala, as you'd expect, that average is much higher. Here are some tips so you don't repeat my stupid mistakes if you ever find yourself here in Pana:

-Don’t buy macadamia nuts in the shell if you don’t have a nutcracker. If you buy them anyway without realizing how hard they are to crack, don’t resort to using your hair straightener, because you will hurt yourself.

-Beware of adorable little kids who try to practice speaking English with you at cafes. They might just be very clever salespeople. But maybe just buy their postcards now and then anyway, because they could be about 8 years old, have 13 siblings, and still have to work on the weekends. True story. Also, kids that clever are deserving of a reward.

-When you go to bars, always try to mention you live in Pana, because it will usually lower the price of your drink. Otherwise you get what they call the “gringo price,” formally known on this blog as the “obruni price.”

-Try to steer clear of Danish ex-pats, especially if they’re clearly wasted.

-Always pay careful attention to how you’re saying something in Spanish, and whether you’re using the formal ‘you’ or the informal ‘you’ to the appropriate person. Or you may be embarrassed to realize later on, that while describing how snow angels are made, you accidentally sort-of rudely commanded a respectable adult to sit on the ground.

-Apparently, that European cheek-kiss greeting really is a thing, so just try to not be so taken aback when someone you just met abruptly shoves his/her face at you.

-Even if there may be a lot of mean, scrappy, vicious dogs running around town, try to contain your excitement when you finally see a cat, instead of being a loser and shrilly blurting out “GATITO!” because you thought no one else was around. But there definitely were people around, and now they are staring.

-If you lost track of what’s going on in a conversation in Spanish, just laugh when everyone else laughs. It usually works out just fine. Except when it doesn’t.

-Talking to middle-aged to elderly Guatemalans is the best way to feel good about oneself. They’ll make you feel good about being young and in your prime, (“Veintiuno? Eres pollito!”) and tell you you’re funny and pretty. Just don’t tell them you’re single, or they will probably try to find you a boyfriend.

-Don’t tell your host you like fried plantains if you actually hate fried plantains. This is a classic Hannah mistake.

Stay tuned for more. It's only been a week.

Bienvenidos a Panajachel

After what felt like days of flying, (despite the fact that it was only about 10 hours or so) I’ve made it here safely! This place is wonderful. I was pretty tired and a bit cranky on Monday when I got off the plane, because I hadn’t been able to sleep very well, but I met up with Salvador, the driver that Mercado Global sent to come get me at the airport, and we set off for Panajachel and I started to feel a lot better. It was nice to just sit in the car for a few hours and stare out the windows in awe of this place. I was trying so hard not to fall asleep so as not to miss any of it, but I was so exhausted that my eyes were rolling back in their sockets and my head would fall backward and hit the headrest and wake me up again.

The drive though, despite being gorgeous, made me a little nervous. Once we got out of the city and were nearing the highlands, the drive got more and more mountainous and there were hairpin turns and rough roads and signs everywhere saying to watch out for rocks falling from the sky. At one part of the drive, it looked like part of the road was actually out because it crumbled away, so we had to drive on like a makeshift dirt road that went through a stream. So that was comforting. But it was some of the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. And they surround Panajachel, so they’re still everywhere I look.

Salvador dropped me off at Doña Angelica’s house and I met my host family for the next couple of weeks or so. There’s Angelica, the oldest member of the family, who’s a woman probably in her late 60s or early 70s. Then there’s Jenny, Angelica’s daughter, who is maybe in her mid 30s or so. Then there are Jenny’s two daughters, ages 7 and 11, named Jacqueline and Shirley. They’re not around much, but they seem very nice, and throw me an “hola” every now and then when I run into them. I only speak Spanish with the family, and they’re very patient with me. There’s actually another person living with them right now, a guy from New York who is close to my age. He’s here taking Spanish classes every day and just living here for a couple of months. He and I seem to be close to the same level of Spanish, so the family is helping us a lot by speaking slower and helping us improve our speaking.

Anyway, I probably arrived around 2 or 3pm and they showed me to my room, which has its own bathroom, so that’s nice. There’s running water in the shower, but not in the sink, so there’s a giant bucket for washing your face and hands. This house seems to be set up almost like a boarding house, so there are a few other rooms just like mine, and an open-air area that they all open up to, and a kitchen upstairs. It’s a beautiful house. En la Calle Navidad. Christmas Street.

After lunch, I went downstairs to take a nap for a while, but had some difficulty sleeping at first due to a screaming child outside my door. I opened the door to go get some water and because I wanted see what the fuss was about, and it turns out it wasn’t a child. It was a big, green parrot that sounded eerily like a screaming child. His name is Lorenzo, and he’s very old and seems to be hanging on to life by a thread. Anyway, when I opened the door he stopped screaming and just stared at me, so that solved that problem. I quickly fell fast asleep after that. One of the ladies I’ll be working with stopped by at some point during that nap to welcome me to Pana, but I was so out of it that meeting her felt like I dreamt the whole thing. I may have embarrassed myself, but I can't really remember anything I said, because I am a champion at napping.

I was woken up from my nap at 7ish to go have dinner, where I met the other guy who’s staying at Angelica’s house. He and I went to hang out and have a couple of drinks after dinner and chatted for a while, so it’s nice to have someone at the house to be able to hang out with every now and then. What’s also nice is that drinks here are really cheap, especially during happy hour, so I spent the equivalent of like, less than $3 on two G&Ts, and they were delicious. We went back pretty early and I went to sleep again, and still slept through the night despite my long nap.

On Tuesday morning I got up a little late and went to go have breakfast, where Jenny and I engaged in some small talk, which is all I can really manage at this point. Like how beautiful the weather is, as well as the flowers on the balcony, and I asked what hummingbirds are called here. Carrillónes, is what I thought she said, but I looked it up in my dictionary and that means “chimes," so I don’t know if I got that right. But I swear that's what she said. Then I went out for a walk to try to find the office, but got lost because I apparently misunderstood Jenny’s directions. So I just decided to give up and explore. I found the lake! It was my first time seeing Lake Atitlán, because it was really cloudy and foggy when I arrived on Monday. But it truly is gorgeous. I could see one of the three volcanoes that surround it as well. I even met a friend from the area when I was walking around there. We were speaking in Spanish for quite a while, so I was super duper proud of myself. I think I was almost a tad better at Spanish than he was at English, so whenever we tried speaking English we would give up and go back to Spanish. So that experience gave me a slight boost of confidence with my language skills. I think I’m actually going to be fine, despite how extremely nervous I was about that aspect of this trip. I might still take Spanish lessons every now and then, because a couple of people here said they have Spanish lessons for really cheap somewhere near Doña Angelica’s house, and you can just go whenever your schedule allows. So I’m considering that.

So then after slowly finding my way back to the house, Leah, my supervisor called and wanted to send someone to help me find the office and show me around. So another intern Karyn came and picked me up, and we went to the office where I met some of the team. It seems like a very relaxed, casual work environment. I really liked it, and everyone was really nice. There's even someone here who just started working in marketing and product development who went to UW-Madison as well, so we bonded a little over that, because it's a small world after all. Today was my first day actually working, and it’s going well so far. They’re just kind of easing me into it, so I didn’t do a whole lot on my first day. Next Wednesday, I’ll be heading to one of the communities with the training coordinator, to see what it’s like and get a better feel for what kind of work they do here within the communities.

So far I’m really enjoying myself! This weekend I might go explore one or two of the neighboring towns along the lake. We’ll see how that goes, or if I can even figure out how to get there. I’ve heard you just catch a pickup truck that’s headed in the same direction. Which makes me kind of want someone to go with me, so hopefully I can find someone who wants to go.

I’ll put up pictures sometime soon. Hope everyone at home is well!

New year, new country, and new adventures to be had.

You heard right folks, this time I'm off to Guatemala! So I'm bringing back the blog.

I can't believe it's been over a year since I left for Ghana. I miss everything about it, and I miss it every day. Especially now, since it's winter. Every time I trudge along in the snow or scrape the ice off of my car before work, I just miss the beach and the sun and even the times where I would be covered in sweat in a crowded trotro because I think I'd prefer that any day to the cold and barren tundra of Minnesota/Wisconsin winters. I mean, I do like the seasons of Minnesota, but it's March and it's still snowing outside and I didn't really have to deal with winter at all last year so I'm a little bit impatient for it to end.

So it's time for me once again to head south, towards the equator. I'll be working in Panajachel, Guatemala for an organization called Mercado Global. It's a non-profit that helps Guatemalan artisan women escape the cycle of poverty by offering education, training, loans, and access to markets. It's main focus is empowering women and as a result, it works to alleviate poverty, malnutrition, and other such things.
Here's the website. I'm extremely excited to be working with this group. Not entirely sure on the specifics of my position yet, but I know it will possibly involve some outreach, as well as some work doing evaluations of training programs and things like that.

One thing I've been struggling with wrapping my head around though, is the language barrier I'm going to run into. Obviously, they speak Spanish down there, and while I've taken a few years of it in high school, I feel like my skills aren't nearly where they need to be right now. I've had a friend helping me practice my speaking quite a bit, and I'm hoping that I know enough at this point to get around by myself. I'm pretty nervous, but my hope is that through immersion, I'll pick up a ton while I'm there. I'm pretty excited about improving my spanish skills, actually. As much as I love German, it's not quite as useful to me in the long run as Spanish will be.

I am so glad I had the experience I had in Ghana because I feel like I'm a little more mentally prepared this time for culture shock. It'll be a different kind of culture shock, but at least I've dealt with it before. And I'll be there for roughly the same amount of time as I was in Ghana, too. It might still be pretty hard this time because I'll be going alone instead of with a group of peers. I will be working with people all the time, but when I go home at night, I'm hoping I won't get too lonely. I have to find my own housing, so I'll most likely be living alone. Which both sounds exciting and a little scary. But I'll be just fine.

Anyway, so things are starting to wrap up here in Eden Prairie before I go. I just told Walgreens--for what will hopefully be the last time--that I'm leaving, I've gotten all of my appointments and meds out of the way and checked off my list, and all that's left to do is work for a few more weeks, pack my suitcase, and say my goodbyes. So I just wanted to throw this post out there to let everyone know that I will be leaving on April 8th and that you should follow me here for updates and stories and general musings about my life in another new place!