just nod and laugh

Another day, another cold shower. I got up this morning and hiked up/ran down El Baul, took a cold shower, and ran over to XelaPan (a bakery/panaderia) to buy breakfast for everyone in the office. When I got back, I had breakfast with Hilda and we talked for awhile about her family situation/baby’s daddy problems (don’t worry it will never compare to morning coffee with you, mom). As she was telling me all of this, yes, in Spanish, I suddenly realized WHOA! I think I’m in the circle of trust. What I mean to say is that I feel like I’m starting to get close with all the ladies at AMA, who I imagine by the time I leave will be like family. As for the rest of the day, I will be reading, fighting off sleeping, and preparing interview questions and other materials for the community I’ll be visiting later this week. Since it’s been awhile since I’ve written though, I need to fill you in on my weekend.

I slept in a little Saturday and then hung around the office for a few hours just to be certain that the demon that possessed my stomach the day before had departed. Then I just set out walking to explore Xela, which is after all the second largest city in Guatemala. To summarize, I basically spent 2 hours just walking around and figuring out the layout of the city a little better. A little piece of information about tonterias (cat calls) – you can’t avoid them. In no way, shape or form have I attempted to dress “cute” while I’ve been here. I went out wearing shorts, a t-shirt, hair up, no makeup and I still got a few comments and one very inappropriate hand/mouth gesture. Who has that ever worked for besides Mike Kerrigan? Really? When I wandered over to the Teatro Municipal, there was a big group of scouts there practicing emergency first aid aka creating makeshift stretchers and carrying off the smallest scout. Which reminds me, my very own brother’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor was this past weekend. CONGRATULATIONS KARSTEN!! You are undeniably the cooler, smarter version of me….I’ll go ahead and add better looking too because I’m sure you’re thinking that. Spark notes version of the rest of the day: spent a few hours wandering around with some random Guatemalan girls I met, saw a woman with 6 fingers, saw some Guatemalan transvestites setting up for the Gay Pride March taking place in Xela, and watched a couple of episodes of Northern Exposure (old TV show) with Ben. For all my ASB loves, I had the opportunity to smoke pot with Ben, but didn’t….sorry I’m not sorry for letting you down. I knew at least Grace would find this hilarious though so I had to share.

Sunday was a lesson in patience. David (a med student at Uva) and I took a shuttle to Los Fuentes Georginas - natural hot baths heated by the Zunil volcano about 30 min outside of Xela. The area surrounding the pools was absolutely gorgeous and there was a trail winding down through the forest, which was really pretty. The only downside to the day was that the shuttle showed up an hour late that morning to take us to the springs and then, it was 2-3 hours late picking us up. At first, I was pretty pissed off about it, but realized that being angry was pretty senseless (I’ve got more to write about this later) and was just going to ruin what was actually a really fun day. It turned out just fine because David and I just hung around, grabbed a drink, explored, and talked while we waited. And the shuttle ride back was fun because there were two guys riding with us who are songwriters in LA/really random interesting people. When we got back to the parque central there was some sort of benefit concert going on so we listened to that for awhile and then headed over to Dos Tejanos to meet up with some other people for dinner. The whole AMA team actually ended up coming to dinner at Dos Tejanos too so I just hopped from one table to the next.

The rest of the night with the AMA team was sooo much fun. Everyone had a few drinks (except Katy and I – still very protective of my stomach) and we all sat around and talked and laughed. Like Ben says, the team that parties together, stays together. It felt really awesome to be chatting, laughing, and taking pictures with a table full of Guatemalan women because most foreigners working in Xela are working with foreign organizations and don’t necessarily get a chance to mingle with locals (apart from homestays if you’re studying Spanish). However, a table full of drinking Guatemalan women also = fast Spanish and a heavy supply of jokes I often don’t catch. I just nod and laugh…I usually get the general idea so I can at least be sure that I haven’t laughed at a joke that’s at my own expense haha. And I think that’s the best thing you can do, when a creepy latino calls out to you, when your bus shows up hours late, when you don’t get a joke, when it rains on your parade (which is does EVERY DAY here) - just go with it, just nod and laugh.