Family Photos

Today we celebrated Raphel's brithday with a beautiful lunch and lots of family conversation. Here's som photos from the day.

The family: Top Row: Raphel senior (who's visiting fom the coast), Marianela (Raphel junior's wife), Amanda (the matriarch), Karin (Amanda and Raphel's daughter). Bottom Row: Luis (Karin's son), Daniela (Raphel junior and Marinela's daughter), Raphel junior (Raphel and Amanda's son).

Luis and Daniela (Luis' cousin)

Daniela

Daniela

The puppies that were born last weekend

Karin, with her brother Raphel (whose birthday we were celebration), Luis and Daniela (Raphel´s daughter) to the bottom left

Photos Volcan Tajumulco

People hiking the rim of the crater (above the clouds)

A cool truck parked alongside the trail

The rim of the crater

Mark, who I did the hike with

Mayan woman praying on the top

Photos Santa Maria

Sunrise

The shadow of Santa Maria

Santiaguita at the beginning of an eruption

Smoke from santiaguita

Smoke from santiaguita

Santiaguita erupting The first signs of the sun Me waiting on top of Santa Maria for the sunrise

The shadow of santa Maria

Me enjoying the sun

The official update

I realize it has been a pitifully long time since I last wrote, but for good reason...that reason being that I've been fully and happily immersed in my life here in Guatemala. This past week I started my volunteer work. I couldn't ask for a better position. I'm interviewing 30 different organizations in and around Xela for the ministry of economics. The ministry is interested to know exactly what each organization is doing and how much they're producing, so that they can organize exposes, provide training where needed, and coordinate the groups in general. This means that everyday I’m meeting new people and visiting new places. I’m also using my Spanish un monton (literally translated, a mountain). It’s not an understatement to say that this work is a bit of a challenge, but the great opportunity to learn about Guatemalan culture makes it worth every moment. Yesterday, after I had interviewed an organization that helps groups of campesinos obtain loans to buy their own land, one of the ladies who works for the organization invited me to drink a cup of coffee. We talked for two hours about the social and cultural realities of Guatemala. It was so interesting. I gained so many insights. The day before I visited a women’s cooperative in this beautiful mountain town. They let me taste a piece of their homemade chocolate. I’ve never tasted anything like it in my life. It was incredible! These are just a couple of the amazing experiences I’ve had in this week alone.

So yah, all is well. Last weekend I hiked Volcano Tacujumulco, the highest point in Central America, with some friends. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful hike. The Tues. before I hiked Volcano Santa Maria (near Xela) under the full moon. We arrived at the top for the sunrise! On one side the sun was rising, on the other side the lights from Xela were fading and on the other side Santiaguita (an active volcano) erupted every 20 minutes or so… What a view! I promise I’ll get those photos up soon.

I thought I would close this e-mail with a quick rose and thorn:

Rose: Buying fresh squeezed orange juice every morning from a really sweet lady right near my Spanish school. I literally watch her cut the oranges and squeeze the juice all for the price of 50 cents.

Thorn: You think people in the U.S. are bad about cell phones- its worse here. It doesn’t matter if your in the middle of a deep conversation or an important business meeting, if someone’s cell phone rings they answer it. One more than one occasion I’ve thought… “couldn’t you just call that person back.”

All right, well I’m off to drink coffee with a friend. I love you all lots and I’ll get some pictures up soon.

Ciao,
Amy

Jose Manuel

On Valentine's day my friend Jose Manuel got a job delivering flowers. I spent the morning driving around Xela with him... it was a great way to get to know the town. Here he is exemplifying Guatemalan safety by driving, talking on the cell phone and smiling for a picture all at the same time =)

The landscape

Where cultures meet

The other day I went to the mall here in Xela just to check it out. Walking through the doors was like walking into America. Gap, subway and Burger King were amongst the many stores there. One moment really left a strong image in my head through. I passed an indigenous woman (wearing traditional clothes as they all do here) carrying two boxes of dominoes pizza. Talk about an interesting intersection of cultures! These type of scenes are everywhere though. Somday I'm going to (discretely) take a picture of an indigenous woman standing in front of McDonalds. Wouldn't that be an intriguing photo? Anyway, I was just thinking about this and I thought I would share.

Holas!

Greetings to all! Today is Xela, the sun is shinning and so am I. I can't believe I've already been here for five weeks. This trip is going to go insanely fast. Today was my last day of spanish classes. Next week I'm going to do some traveling and then I will begin volunteering afterwards. Learning spanish has been and continues to be so much fun. I feel like everyday I'm able to communicate just a little bit better. It's invigorating! So tonight is my graduation dinner from the school. I currently have in my possession 15 mangos (which cost $1.50), a pound of sugar and cinemon. I'm going to try to make "Mangos en Miel," a traditional dessert here, for the dinner. If it turns out the way its supposed to, its going to be good. Wish me luck!

Yesterday I watched Perros Amores in spanish. It's a really really good Mexican movie. If any of you can find it with subtitles I highly recommend it. Don't rent it if you're looking for something light though, its definitely not. It is however, pure genius. The cinematography and the script are so well done. The movie weaves together the lives of three different groups of people and is full of twists and turns. So yah... interesting.

Now I'm off to my graduation. Will those of you who live in Alaska and Colorado let the snow know that I send my greetings. I have to admit that every now and then I long for one good tele turn, especially when I hear about all the fresh that has been dumping in the north. Whenever these moments come about however, I'm consoled by the fact that I am so very happy here in Guatemala.

Loves,
Amy

My classroom at school

The outside of my school (my school is on the second floor). The market is right across the street which is awesome for buying food during break, but can create a noisy scene below when I'm trying to understand how the hell to use the subjunctive in spanish =)

The beer facory in town- gotta love Gallo

A pila (used to wash clothes)

The everyday

It occurred to me that I haven’t put up any photos of my everyday life, so today is when I will do so… enjoy! Amy

My host family: Amanda, Karin and Luis

Luis with his great-grandma

Amanda at her sowing machine. She's a wizard, it's unbelievable what she can make in a few hours

The livingroom in my house

The livingroom (other side)

The kitchen (see what I mean about the table filling up the whole kitchen)

The kitchen

My bedroom (Misty posed for the picture)

The superbowl in espanol

The superbowl commentated in espanol.... you gotta love it. Cutting to the half-time party in Mexico city.... gotta love that too. Missing all the good commercials.... that I have to admit was not so cool.... but what can you do?

So yah... I went to a superbowl party at my friend's apartment yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed being American for a a few hours. We made pizza, ate nachos and drank coca-cola. It was great!!

Alicia

Feli making the pizza

Photos from my day of rock climbing

View from the rocks where we were climbing

Self-portrait

Prayer flags in the rocks

One of the many "churches" scattered throughout the mountainside (see previous blog)

My friend Justin who is a wicked good rock climber

One of the faces we climbed (I did the route on the left side)

Cracked

Cracked... the floor on which her dry skin treds
She plods toward the sunlight hidding behind the wooden doors
How many miles have her barren feet walked?
A foundation that refuses to yeild, succumb or fall
A women, a grandmother, steps out of a church

Fireworks, Moutain Wanders and Mayan Churches

Greetings a todo,

Here in Guatemala you will find Amy happy and well. Not only is everything going well in general, but also I found an internet place with fast computers and flat screens. It’s truly revolutionary. All I had to do was seek out the place next to the university here. So I’m going to try to write all the interesting, juicy details of my life as briefly as possible. After all, if any of you wanted to read a novel you would probably read Charles Dickens blog instead =)

That being said I shall begin with fireworks, or the obsession thereof. In fact, it’s an understatement to say that this country is obsessed with fireworks. It’s probably even an understatement to say that this country is fanatical about fireworks. And not only are they fanatical about fireworks, it seems they are also fanatical about making the experience as dangerous as possible. The soccer game I went to on Sat. night could be classified as a near death experience… okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration…. but when full scale fireworks are going off on the ground, feet from the stands it’s not exactly safe either. One time fireworks even went off in the stands after failing to properly launch. On New Years Eve apparently over 20 people in Guatemala died from firework related incidents. Yet they continue to accompany every celebration. At 6 a.m. every morning you can hear fireworks going off around the city because its customary to celebrate birthdays with them. I think that the people here probably spend their money on fireworks, food and a place to live- in that order. Fireworks aside, the soccer game was really fun. The two other people I went with and I painted our faces, wore the home team’s colors and shouted all the bad words we know in Spanish (when we ran out of real bad words we started making up our own, much to the amusement of the boy sitting next to us).


Yesterday proved to be quite adventurous. My friends and I decided to walk to Los Vahos, a natural sauna on the side of a volcano. Somehow we managed to wander off course, turning a 45 minute walk into a two hour bushwack. What fun!! It was so great to be out exploring in the mountains. I was never really concerned about being able to get back if we needed to since we occasionally were able to glimpse the city below us. When we finally found Los Vahos we were standing on the mountain peak above them. Gringos locos if you ask me.

Sun. I went climbing with Queztaltrekkers, the same group I hiked the volcano with. Our guides were two crazy Guatemalans. Everything was safe but also a bit old school. All in all it was great to be out climbing, but the part of the day that warrants a few words was actually the hike up to the rocks where we climbed. Scattered throughout the mountainside different groups of Mayans had gathered together to pray. All around us there was an ambient reverberation from hymns being sung and the preachers’ voices. There must have been 20 to 30 different clans, or churches, cradled within the rocky terrain. It was really phenomenal to hike through that.

Well, I’m going to leave it at that. This isn’t quite a novel but I guess it did turn out to be a bit of a dissertation. Oops. I hope all is well with you guys. Thanks for all the comments everyone has left. I love reading them.

Sonrisas,
Amy