Delicious Food

Thank god that even though I am far away from the AMAZING cook Rosalia, I can still AMAZING food. My host mom is a pretty good cook. AND right now there are tons of festivals and stuff, which means STREET FOOD (minus the chorizos aka sausages. ug.) Sunday night was the Festival of the Virgen of Roses (does anyone know if this is the SAME virgen that gave birth to like, Jesus?) and I ate SO many good things-

pupusas! (cheese and tortillas together again)

sugar donut things! (imagine donuts- covered in about 2centimeters of pure crystalized sugar)

ponche! (delicious creamy milk and sugar and cinnamon and spices and rum)

and then there was a fireworkd sculpture and the HALO OF THE VIRGEN FLEW IN THE SKY AND EXPLODED! It was the coolest thing I have every seen.

And tonight there is a the night before Day of the Dead/ All Saints Day and there is HELLA food stands outside the cementary, too.

awesome.

warning-this post is kind of gross and embarrassing

Soooooo... toilets here are really weird. You´re not supposed to put paper in them (which I honestly didn´t figure out for about three weeks. I thought the paper baskets in our school where for the German students), and SOMETIMES they are really hard to flush.

For example, one could be, oh, taking a giant poo. And then flush the toilet. And see that the poo is not going down as it should. And then you go ask your host mom for help, and she explains how it works to you. But you could go upstairs and STILL not be able to figure it out. And then, MAYBE, you would have to go back downstairs AGAIN and ask the host mom for help and tell her that maybe you broke the toilet and then she would go upstairs and show you how you have to pour a bunch of water in at the same time you are flushing, and she is showing you this....... she also sees your poo.

And it´s really really embarrassing.

Mi Maestra/ My Teacher

called me lazy

called me naughty

implied that I [get around[ with boys

implied that I was going to get fat

told me that I only like boys with big bodies

talked with me about Bush{s international politics

listened while I complained about Bush{s domestic policies

discussed with me her dreams of working in the United States

asked about the fate of illegal workers in the United States, and listened to my thoughts

been a very good teacher, and I will miss her very much

is named Clara

Stories, part two

This story was told to me by a man who came this week for a conference at my school. Originally the conference was supposed to be about the Popol Vuj, the Mayan Bible, but it ended up being his story instead.

San Pedro was not always a hippie gringos paradise. During the civil war, there was a lot of violence in San Pedro and the surrounded villages perpetuated by the military trying to [get rid of guerrillas[ or so they said. Santiago Atitlan was hit particularly hard. At this time, if you heard a knock on your door late at night, someone in your household was probably about to disappear.

The speaker was at home with his parents late, everyone was sleeping, when they heard activity outside. They all ran out the backdoor, but there was very very little light. The speaker -TS- told us how he was sneaking around back, when a soldier came by, unable to see him. For whatever reason TS reached out and tried to grab the gun in front of him, and ended up with bullet wounds in his arm and leg instead.

He was taken by the military and held for 7 days. He was tortured and questioned about what he knew aboaut guerilla activity. He told us about many different ways they tortured him- putting cigarettes out on his chest, taking all the prisoners out in a boat and dunking them for extended periods of time. He saw someone die this way. They put guns in his mouth. They electricuted his genitals. He saw one man told he could go free, and as soon as he walked out, he was shot. At one point, he himself was told he was free to go, but refused to leave, afraid of getting the same fate.

After 7 days, they were all released, and he went back to his family. As he was telling the story, he said how important it was to him to be able to tell it, how it helped him deal with the memories. To this day, he doesn{t really know why the military came to his house- perhaps because he had studied in university.

He was remarkably calm throughout the telling. It was only when mentioning his reaction to fireworks years afterwards that he got choked up. For three or four years, any sort of fireworks - New Years is a big time for them, as are futbol games- would trigger flashbacks of his torture.

Stories, part one

This story was told to me by my teacher about how Lago de Atitlan was made.

A long time ago before there was a lake in the center of this cluster of volcanoes, there was a girl named Maria who had a novio she was engaged to. They loved each other very much, and were usually very very happy together. Then one day, they got into a big fight, and Maria left the house, even though her love begged her not to leave while they were both angry.

The next day, Maria{s friend came to her house and told her that she needed to come to the church and quick. Her novio was marrying another woman! Maria did not believe it, until she went to the church and saw it with her own eyes.

How could this be? She did not believe, and, distraught, left her village at the base of one of the many volcanoes in the valley. She walked and walked and walked around the valley, and as she walked, she kept crying and crying and crying, until a lake formed from her tears. And then she drowned in them. And she YOU CAN STILL HEAR HER CRY!!! BECAUSE SHE{S IN THE BOTTOM OF THE LAKE RIGHT NOW!!! AS A GHOST! WHOOOOO!!!!!

I guess the moral of the story is never leave the house angry. I think the better moral is don{t date jerks who marry other girls just because you can{t put up their stupid faces when you are mad. Those guys are putas.

Problemas con Somos Hijos Del Lago

1) The center does not have enough money or trained staff. I have talked about this issue before. There is one teaher, a secretary, and a linguistic or physical therapist of some kind. And then volunteers. All of whom could or could not be registered sex offenders because they don´t do any sort of background check. Oh, and the volunteers have no traning, either.

Regardless, there are other problems with this center that have nothing to do with lack of money. Here are some more observations-

2) Poor management of time almost ALWAYS. The teacher and secretary spend the first 30-45 minutes cleaning the floors. Hey, I understand, the floors are dirty. But these guys could a) do this the night before, or b) get the kids to help and learn some life skills in the process.

3) No Life Skills taught! When will these kids need to know to color inside the lines? Ok, I guess motor skills or something? But there is no motivation for anything else. Some of the people are writing but if they are writing something incorrectly, they are just left to keep making the same mistakes over and over. If you are going to teach people to write, really TEACH them. Also teach them some basic hygeine, how to prepare food, stuff like that. Playing games all day long is fun, but ultimately more debilitating.

4) I do not want to spend an extra hour taking kids home while you sit in the office and talk. I know there are days when I´m the only volunteer. But I was mad as hell the other day when this happened. This is not how you treat the volunteers that you depend on. You are perfectly capable of taking kids home as well, and I have no idea why you did not, maestra.

5) Teasing kids never has a theraputic value. Not does letting them hit other kids, or try to pull down the pants of volunteers. There are times when all of these things have happened. There is never any sort of consequence for negative behavior. And that makes me upset, too.

Anyway, esa es la vida, si? In social services, you love the clients, hate the bosses. Wait, I´m not even getting paid for this. What´s my problem?

yo quebro cosas

so last sunday was spent hanging out in San Pedro, eating at some of the many fine restaurantes here (we are not fed on Sundays by our host families), saying goodbye to friends, and breaking sinks. Es verdad.

I was using the bathroom in one of my favorite places to get mint tea, Munchies. (they use real whole mint leaves! mmmmm...) I stood up, pulled back the curtain (yes, this particular place only had a curtain protecting me from the outside world), and stepped out, intending to step into the small room next door in order to wash my hands. I forgot about a tiny step, tripped, tried to break my fall by putting my hands in the sink, and instead knocked the sink off the wall and onto the ground where it broke into a billion pieces.

But why, Caitlin? Was your fall really hard? No, no. The sink was only attached to the wall and the water pipe with duct tape. Yep. Duct tape.

Sigh. so I´m hoping my insurance will cover the $40 a new sink will cost them. I would also like to point out that it took them about 3 whole days to get me a receipt and letter explaining the accident. It´s like these people don´t WANT my money! sheesh.

I AM OUTTA HERE

Once again, I{m packing up and moving on. Probably. Maybe. I think I am going to Todos Santos next week for a big drunken horse race and then to study some more before the honorable Zak Rouse comes down for the week.

More information as it comes.

Mis Zapatos

My Shoes.

By Caitlin Steitzer. Age 23.

I really like my brown and orange Sauconeys. I have had them for over a year. I think orange and brown look pretty colorful together. I have worn my shoes in Seattle, I think San Franciso, and Guatemala. I walked from Xela to San Pedro in them, and they climbed up and down two mountains on the way. Yesterday, it rained really really hard in San Pedro, and I wore my shoes and they got wet. It was like walking in a river. This morning, they were still wet. They are still a little wet now. But I love them a lot, even if they smell.

The end.

Funny words

From many languages, not just Spanish, include:

Tim Tam (australian cookies)

Jammy Dodgers (british cookies)

Tuk tuk (San Pedro taxi mini car with three wheels)

Shook Aqáa (See you tomorrow in Tzu-tuhil, the Mayan language that everyone speaks here. And this is really hard to say, because you need to use muscles in the back of your throat that you never ever ever use. So everyone laughs at you when you try to say it.)

Rosalia de las Pastelles, trabajadora

My host mom, Rosalia, is a professional cake baker. Like- that´s what she does. Bake cakes to sell around San Pedro. Last night I was at a birthday party for a jazz bassist I didn´t know (hey, it had a free bar) and one of her cakes was there.

There are many things that are awesome about this. Cake. The smell of cake. Frosting. Cake. More wonderful smelling of cake.

But one of the most interesting things is seeing Rosalia and her family work. There are days when she will have orders of 8 cakes. That´s a lot. She works hard for the money. Not just Rosalia, but her husband Juan and son Abner as well. It´s really interesting and comforting to see men here working in a kitchen. I don´t think it´s very common. These two will be up until midnight or later, working on cakes, and then get up at 6 am or earlier to finish them or deliver them. Keep in mind that Juan is also a teacher, and they get a lot of money (i´m assuming) from keeping three students in the house. They are definately a ¨middle class¨guatemalan family, but they work fucking hard for it.

People here work really hard. I was sitting talking to a gringo owner of a local restaurant (a lot them here are owned by gringos, for gringos. BGFG). We were chatting on the laid back nature of business here. He talked about how his restaurants in the US were STRESS STRESS STRESS, and not here. He doesn´t know the full names of his landlord, nor they his. And someone mentioned, "Everything here is so EASY." I think some things are really REALLY easy for gringos with money. And I think people here make it easy because when so many things are so HARD, you do your best to make everything as easy as possible.

Well, if you´ll excuse me, I have to hop into my limo and relax with some champagne, cuban cigars, and a private hot tub party. It´s costing about $10 an hour, so I better get on it.

Hippies, Hippies, Everywhere

This places is lousy with them. But only by the lake. You walk up the hill, and it´s pretty chapin (guatemalan).

Basura Basura, Siempre Basura

Garbage, garbage everywhere. That´s not a direct translation, but it´s close enough. So have I mentioned that there´s no real garbage collection system here? People just sort of throw stuff on the streets.

Oh, and here in San Pedro, they´ve started poisoning the street dogs. So dog bodies are garbage in the street too. (Although they go around in trucks and pick those up. I´ve yet to see one.)

And they spray insectiside in the air. It´s really gross.

Somos Hijos Del Lago

This translates to- We Are The Children of the Lake. Today was my second day of volunteering there. I basically play with kids and adults with different disabilities. And I mean DIFFERENT. Basically anyone with any sort of disability is at this organization. Mental and physical. It is the only one of it{s kind for probably the entire lake.

Today there was a big fiesta in the afternoon because the center wasn{t able to celebrate National Kids Day on its actual day (October 1st) because it fell on a Sunday. While the cake, dancing, and presents, were a lot of fun... this place is also kind of sad. When I walked in yesterday and said I wanted to volunteer, I was asked to give my first name and the country I was from. And then they gave me two mentally retarded boys to look after for two hours.

Today, a girl was sitting on my lap, and I suddenly felt like I needed to cough. I realized that it wasn{t my flemmy lungs I was feeling... I could feel how hard it was the girl to breathe. And healthcare isn{t all that good down here. And I felt like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol when he asks the ghost of christmas present if Tiny Tim will live.

I know it{s not yet Christmas or Thanksgiving, but if you have any extra dollars, people here really need your help. Here{s their info-
www.atitlanonline/somoshijosdellago.com
somoshijosdellago@yahoo.com

Donations of money can be sent by Western Union to BANRURAL account 3093009736 TO THE ACCOUNT OF SOMOS HIJOS DEL LAGO

Why that 19 year old kid from California who was on the Xela to San Pedro trek SUX

Dear C-------,
I am not using your real name because I don{t want you to one day do a Google vanity search and find this and come and kill me. But you kind of suck. Here is my argument for why.
Oh, I had such high hopes in the beginning. You like the Decemberists. We had a nice conversation about it. I thought we would be friends on the trek. However, as soon as it became apparent that all you wanted to do was hook up with our lead guide, you dropped me and everyone else like a sack of potatoes. Sure, I understand wanting to bone Anna. She{s super cute and funny. But would it kill you to sometimes NOT be at the front of the hike ALL the time? To TRY to talk to some of us occasionally? I even attempted to speak to you in Spanish since you were SO PROUD of the 6 weeks of schooling you have had. Yet hardly anything.
That{s not really why you suck. You suck because you are a snobby know it all. For example. You make the claim that Guatemala City is not REALLY Guatemala culture. What on earth do you mean by this? How can the biggest city in Guatemala with 2 million Guatemalans NOT be Guatemalan culture? Sure, they have Taco Bells and McDonalds there, but does that negate the cultural validity of the people who live there? Does partaking in such things mean that one is not really Guatemalan? And who gave YOU the right to make such an assertion? I think you just WANT all Guatemalans to live in fincas in the mountains because it{s so exotic and different. And I think that makes you racist.
You also made other weird racist comments during the trip. Look, the Austrailian guy was actually friends with the Israelis. His apparent hatred for Israelis was a joke they all shared. When you started making weird comments about too many Jews around, it made everyone uncomfortable. Even the Austrailian, and he liked you.
Another thing: if you are going to claim that you study post structualist philosphy, you should figure out what that actually is. I bet it is more than just "a lot of things" that you "haven{t actually studied in awhile" which are "hard to explain." I also would bet money on the fact that French guy you mentioned had a philosophy that included more than "the face of the other sets you free." That doesn't make any sense.
But you are 19. I forgive you a for a lot of these examples of suckiness. Just a word of advice- it{s really embarrassing to everyone around you when you start playing the guitar and singing bright eyes songs while staring at the girl you have a crush. It{s a lesson we all have to learn. But you will be so much happier when you do. Good luck in the future on not sucking. You have your work cut out for you.
Sincerely,
That girl who was really slow on the hike but is still a worthwhile person.

p.s. sorry for the terrible spelling and weird punctuation everyone. This is a weird computer. Oh, and I can never spell anyway.

The Difference Between the Verbs "HIKE" and "WALK"

Here are some uses of the verb "walk":

I will WALK to the store to buy some ice cream.

I WALKed to my friends house down the street.

They will WALK for 15 minutes each day.

Here are some uses of the verb "hike":

We HIKEd up a 500 meter mountain in two hours.

I will HIKE across this trail really really high up and if I fall I will hurt myself really badly.

I will HIKE for hours on end and it will hurt my knees.

I was very suprised to realize that I didn't really understand the differences between these two verbs. The hike to San Pedro was killer- in both good and bad ways. There were some parts that were a little scary for me (who has something of a fear of open heights), but ultimately, nothing really dangerous (mom and dad and family don't worry). And one cannot WALK to the top of Lago de Atitlan and witness one of the most beautiful sunrises ever. It is not possible.

Overall, thumbs up. Although my right knee still hurts a bit. Stupid downhill hiking.

Things I'll Miss About Xela

1. Best Hot Chocolate in the world at cafe luna. It's a little over a buck. It's pretty much meltded chocolate. with milk. and whipped cream. it's life changing.

2. the menonites bakery open tuesdays and fridays. more amazing tasting things.

3. futbol games. I'm a pretty big sports fan now. go super goats!

4. mi familia. they're pretty cool. The dogs are fun too.

5. Seeing random choreographed dances in the central park.

6. the dead cat on the street. oh wait, I will NOT miss that.

7. I dunno... it's XELA. what a cool name.

I Smell Bad Because...

Ok, I don't really smell bad. But I don't shower that much here. It just feels... I don't know. When you see a country that's sooo poor, you realize how PRECIOUS natural resources are. So. I like showering everyday. Do I need to shower everyday? No. So I don't.

Now the showers in Guatemala are kind of funny, because hardly any houses have hot water supplies. The showers have these boxes connected to them that you turn on to heat the water. Sometimes they don't work, and then you shower cold.

Anyway, when I first came to the house, my host mom showed me how to work it, and instructed me to turn the water off when lathering up. Which I do. I would say my showers last about a minute or two. Total. So the waters running even less.

BUT the other day my host mom comes and shows me AGAIN how to work the thing, and talks about how for the past three weeks the water has been really expensive. LOOK, BITCH, I'VE ONLY BEEN LIVING WITH YOU FOR TWO WEEKS! Plus, I totally don't take as long as your sons. And last night, I SWEAR I heard water running for like, half an hour somehwere in the house.

Anyway, I don't know why it infuriated me SO MUCH. But it did. But otherwise my family is still pretty awesome.

PS: I took a really long shower when visiting a pretty well-off family in Guatemala City. With hot water the entire time. I guess it's easy to forget when not surrounded by reminders, huh?

La Capital es A-OK

A lot of y'all have prolly been hearin' some serrrriousss shiiiiiit about Guatemala City. Well let me tell y'all that it's pretty much all true. Yeah, it's crowded. Yeah, it's dirty. Yeah, there's tons o' crime and what not. And yeah, I had a blast there last weekend.

This just goes to show that always try to see a city with a native leading the way. Preferably if that native is K-Ro Flores, with her incredibly nice boyfriend on the side. Highlighst include:
* Driving for probably 45 minutes in the pouring rain trying to find a bar that had any room in it. Any. And then finding that bar and drinking incredible mojitos and flaming shots of goodness.

* One of the best breakfasts I've ever had in my life- including papaya, papaya juice, banana, black beans with sour cream, fried plaintains with sour cream, sweet bread, and tea. Oh, and this breakfast was in a beautiful mansion that K-Ro's father built and designed himself.

* A conversation with a very old and wealth Guatemalan woman who studied in the US when she was younger and got her masters of education. Being amused by her story of incredible luck from scholarships and generous financial gifts from her American family, and then complaining about poor people always want "money for free." Ha ha ha ha. Oh, the hypocrisy.

* A party at K-Ro's friends house that started around 3pm and lasted until 10pm. Said party involved more flaming shot drinks, and two people puking. Neither of whom was me. Success!

* A trip to a fruit market that ended with me buying the most incredible fruits ever. They do not exist in the US. And that is a shame.

Names I Have Been Called

Kay-tin

Keet-lyn

Catalina

Catarina

Kate-leen

Kiki

Kinky

Apparently Caitlin is not only rare in spanish, it is also very very difficult to pronounce.

IF I NEVER EVER EVER GET FOOD POISONING AGAIN...

It would be too soon.