Salsa

Update: I now have a roommate. Her name is Lucy; she’s also an undergrad and she will be volunteering here for the next 6 weeks. On the one hand, I’d kind of gotten used to being alone in the evenings and doing my own thing, but on the other I’m really glad to have someone to go visit places with me and to potentially goof off with. She’s really nice and obviously up for most everything because I was able to drag her out to salsa night at La Parranda on her first night here.

            Around 10:00 La Parranda really fills up. At this point most gringos have left the dance floor and are just watching in awe as the locals tear up the dance floor. Without a doubt, salsa is sexy. Yes, I watched jealously as women in tacones (heels) danced effortlessly. There was one older woman who was amazing and despite the fact that she was definitely over 35 and a bit heavier she was so sexy (no homo) when dancing. A salsa instructor and her were dancing at one point and he lifted her up and did a crazy twist thing that you’ve probably seen on dirty dancing; it was so unexpected and scared the crap out of me. Ok so obviously, I did a lot of watching haha, but I also danced! And it’s official, I’m not very good. You know when you’re dancing with a guy at a party and you don’t want to be so you say something like “oh I have to go to the bathroom” or “I’m gonna go get some air, a drink, etc.” well I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I think that happened to me! I danced with two Guatemalan guys and received these two lines, “Voy a tomar agua (I’m gonna go get some water)” and “Voy a charlar con mis amigos (I’m gonna go talk to my friends)” Although obviously that means I make a crappy salsa partner, that’s pretty hilarious. And by gringa standards I think I do alright, I at least have the rhythm down, but if I were a guy I’d want to dance with one of the Guatemalan girls in tacones too. Both guys I danced with were a little creepy…or maybe it’s just that I don’t like dancing semi-provocatively with people I don’t know. I had a lot more fun dancing with Brian, a guy from California I met earlier this week. He showed me some turns and moves without all the bravado and hip thrusting that sometimes accompanies dancing with latinos. I’ve actually had a desire recently to break it down with Blair and the rest of the awesome Maupin 310s, but that’ll have to wait until August!

             Today I just made more preparations for my research in the community next week. I had to go to an internet café to print off some visuals and while I was waiting for things to print I explored a few of the nearby Pacas. What’s a Paca? They are basically really small thrift stores filled with second hand American clothes that you can find on practically every street corner. Nothing else of major importance has happened, but I can say that my Spanish is definitely improving. I’ve been trying to speak slower in order to use better grammar and I’ve been taking the time to stop and correct myself when I say something wrong. Hopefully my salsa skills will eventually improve too!

random/interesting facts : )

Apart from a really long meeting with Claudia that was super helpful in getting my project and objectives organized and going out to dinner with some people from the office, today was pretty boring. However, this current lack of excitement in my life gives me an opportunity to share some random/interesting facts about Guatemala!

*Coffee: Living in Guatemala should mean that you get to drink rich Guatemalan coffee, right? Wrong. All of the rich, delicious Guatemalan coffee that you hear about is exported to comparatively wealthy Americans and Europeans like you and I. Locals in Guatemala tend to drink weak/lower grade coffee with lots of sugar. Thus, as I’ve acclimated to the chilly weather I’ve stopped drinking coffee because yea, it’s not very good.

*Tu: In the U.S. the Spanish taught in schools is generally geared toward the rules found in Spain. Therefore, most of us have no idea that in Guatemala when a man uses the tu form with another man it has a gay connotation. Instead, guys use usted or vos with each other.

*The Zetas: No not the sorority, the drug cartel in Guatemala. Guess what ma? Members of Zeta have been found in Xela! (minor panic attack for my mom) Luckily, they were found by police while hanging up one of their many signs declaring that they are not at war with the Guatemalan people, etc. The Zetas, whose origins actually lie in Mexico, have been the source of a lot of violence in the North of Guatemala recently and were responsible for the recent massacre in Petan. The Guatemalan government issued a siege allowing the military to move freely throughout the North in order to deal with the situation there.

*Mano Duro: The IRON FIST. This is the campaign slogan for one of the many candidates for Guatemala’s presidential election, which is going to take place this September. Despite the fact that Guatemala is only the size of an average American state, it has 20 or more political parties! There are posters hung almost everywhere, but posters for el mano duro seem to be especially prevalent. Apparently, the man behind the mano duro was also the brain behind many of the military tactics used during the Guatemalan Civil War to raze and kill entire indigenous communities. How do the Guatemalan people feel about this? I’m honestly not positive, but think about it…how many Americans really take the time to do good background research on most of the candidates they vote for?

*Toilet paper: Guatemala has bad pipes, so all toilet paper must go in a trashcan beside the toilet.

*Spanish schools and volunteering: Xela is packed with Spanish language schools and volunteer opportunities. This volunteer hotspot basically exploded during the past ten years though because prior to the end of the civil war in 1996, no one came to Guatemala. I’ve talked to a bunch of foreigners taking classes here and it’s actually pretty amazing how much Spanish they learn in just a few weeks. An average Spanish school here costs $200 a week, which includes four hours of one on one Spanish lessons a day, several activities and excursions with the school and a homestay with a family/three meals a day Monday through Saturday. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. I’ll probably come back to a different Central American country at some point to spend a few weeks at a Spanish school…any other takers?

Since I have to get up at 5 am tomorrow to help prepare for a team’s arrival, I better head to bed! I’ll give you more random facts later…if you want them. Now that I know people are actually reading this, if you have requests or certain things/topics you want to hear about just let me know!

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.

Exhalamos, perro

Breathe, downward dog. If you want a Spanish lesson in body parts, go to a yoga class. I went to a class at the Xela yoga house and found it interesting enough to write a whole blog post about. Where to start, well the instructor is a Guatemalan woman who has braces, a sweaty/oily face and is working on growing a mustache. To top it off she was wearing Richard Simmons-esque fluorescent teal track pants. A week of yoga classes costs 35Q, which is around $5. The class was held in a tiny room with green walls and almost everyone there was a foreigner. Not surprisingly, some of them seemed pretty hipster…especially the unshaven tattooed girl beside me. The class was really good though, and I got to laugh inside a little bit every time the instructor said Chatarunga because it sounded so funny.

Afterwards I struck up a conversation with a girl named Whitney, who seemed pretty close to my age. But alas, no, she is 24 and a grad student at UNC. It seems like most of the other people working here are around that age; I haven’t met any other undergrads besides the ones that come on teams with AMA. We agreed to meet up at a café in the park called el cuartito…which actually turned out to be awesome because Warren and a bunch of other Uva students showed up. Dorothy, another rising second year from Uva that I know, is actually here in Xela as well. I got lots of phone numbers    : ) and now have hopes of having a social life. However, my night quickly became terrible, and I mean TERRIBLE.

I don’t know what time exactly, but at some point during the night I woke up shivering, with a stomach ache and headache that literally made me want to cry. I basically spent the next 12 hours throwing up (so I’m not sorry for telling you that) and sleeping. I have NEVER been this sick. I slept on and off (between throwing up) until 4 or 5 in the evening. The AMA ladies were really nice and went and bought me coca-cola, Gatorade, some magic electrolyte drink that tastes like pineapple, and antibiotics (that’s right Natalie, Guatemalan not Mexican antibiotics haha). The culprit of these 12 hours of pure torture? Probably the street food I ate yesterday. It’s a shame because I was really looking forward to more cheap street food. Regardless, I also had a Mojito last night and since that’s the last thing I had before getting sick I never want to look at one again (I’m sorry Sarah, I know they’re your favorite). The moral of this story- don’t eat street food.

la vida economica

La rumba! That’s the name of the club I went to last night with Kirsten. It was sooo much fun just to get out for a night because lately I’ve been stuck in the office since it’s not very safe to walk by yourself at night. However, now I have a phone and a few friends in town so hopefully there will be lots of nights out in the near future. I might go to the free salsa lessons that they hold at several clubs around town because at the moment I’m pretty horrible. Anyhoo, this morning was super exciting because I got to go running!!!! Kirsten and I met at 6:30 and ran el Baul, which is a nearby mountain hike. We had to walk the uphill part because hills + much higher altitude = an inability to breath. On the run back this guy ran right behind us the whole time, slowing down and speeding up when we did…not sure if he was being creepy or if he was just trying to be manly and keep up with us. Then, after taking a FREEZING cold shower, I walked to the park, bought breakfast and sat in the center square and people watched. Afterwards, back to the office to work (and play).

Rather than just sharing my itinerary with you guys, I’m also going to try to share some interesting information about Guatemala! La vida en Guatemala es una vida economica (cheap/economical) for los gringos (white people). As I explained yesterday, produce is definitely much cheaper than it is at home, a mango here costs roughly 35 cents. Anything that’s imported is going to be much more expensive though! I bought breakfast this morning from a street vender in the park and for $1 got a chile relleno with spaghetti and beans (I know, it sounds strange). Even at restaurants you can buy a full breakfast for around $3. And it makes sense if you think about it. When the minimum wage is $1, which it is here, and a business likely isn’t paying for social security, Medicaid etc. the value added from the service is going to be a lot less. Housing is cheap too, Cater pays a little under $100 a month for here rent and that includes internet, cable, water and gas! However, all these numbers are relative and like I said, it’s an economical life for gringos…not for your average Guatemalan. Roughly 25% of Guatemalans live on less than $1 a day and more than half have an income of less than $2 a day (these statistics are a little dated). So, even though I think the food here is cheap, your average Guatemalan is spending more than 50% of their income to feed themselves. And we think we have it rough when the price of food rises (the average American spends like 7% of their income of food). Anyways, in short, you can travel in Central America pretty cheaply relative to American standards (which means all of you should be jumping up and down to travel with me next time I come).

Mangoes and Adam Smith are dank

Mangoes are delicious. And cheap. One of the awesome things about Guatemala is the price of fresh produce.  Yesterday, I bought a head of lettuce, a bunch of carrots, a cucumber, three mangoes, an avocado, and a pound of black beans for roughly $3. There are several markets in Xela with rows of venders selling all sorts of fruits, veggies, beans, and grains. There were several things that I’d never seen before, like a fuzzy red fruit of some sort and another fruit that looks a bit like a potato but is apparently a cross between an avocado and a sweet potato. I’ll let you know if that’s the case when I try it.

I’ve also decided that my dentist is going to be very angry about the amount of coffee and tea I’ve been drinking. When it’s cold and rainy all you want to drink something warm, so most days I’ve been drinking 4 to 6 cups of tea or coffee. Cater, who is the food and health expert around here, told me that because Guatemalans so frequently drink hot drinks, which they usually drink with sugar, diabetes has become a problem in many communities. Thus, I drank my coffee and tea without sugar and instead ate a coconut macaroon that I bought on the way back from the park instead.

Going back to the title of this blog, Ben is definitely a bit of an expert on economics, so this morning he showed Kirsten and I his presentation on the Invisible Hand’s role in economic development. I’ve had several econ talks with Ben and realized that 1) I learned way more than I thought in my Business, Ethics and Society class and 2) Adam Smith is a boss. I guess I should also add 3) I’m a huge nerd.

Lastly, one of the VCU kids, Lucas, used the word dank the other day which I’ve never heard or used before (probably because I'm not a stoner) so I thought I’d give it a try haha. Also why do you have to add an e to the plural form of mango, seriously, who decided to do that?

Hasta luego.

trucks y trabajo

This morning got off to an interesting start. The AMA truck that is supposed to drive Hilda, Roberto and some others to El Refugio wouldn’t start. So, Cater, Kirsten, Hilda, Roberto, Ricardo and I all lined up behind it and pushed. After getting it out into the street, it still wouldn’t start and we were blocking a bus, so a few men emerged from the bus and we all pushed it back into the garage. And then we went again, we pushed it out into the street and kept pushing and kept pushing for like a block and a half until it finally caught. Hilda plopped down on the sidewalk and just laughed and laughed.

            Back to yesterday, I spent the day working in the office, exploring the market and cooking a little. For the next 4 to 5 weeks I’m going to be conducting research about the economy of Pacutama, a community in the mountains of Guatemala. I’ll be spending some of my days in the office researching and designing a series of interview questions and a research method. Then, I will spend a few days to a week living in the community to gather information and conduct interviews. The hope is that my secondary research and the primary data I collect can be used to continue a bigger project dealing with community health and economics.

            I’ll tell you all about the markets and food later after I’ve seen and tasted more! Shout out to Karsten- I made guacamole yesterday, get excited : )