Week 6: Casa Jaguar!

A little over a week ago we moved into our official room in Casa Jaguar and we LOVE it! It´s spacious, colorful and we love having our own little balcony! The balcony is too little to fit even our dinner table, but we eat dinner with the balcony doors open and the table pushed up against the doorway. ¡Que romántico! Here are some pictures of our home...for good this time (at least until Bryce finishes med school interviews, because it´s a safe place for me to live by myself while he´s gone.)

Welcome! The entrance to the shared balcony. Our balcony overlooks this balcony.

some apartment lobbies have a concierge...ours has a mayan god.

our room!

The view from our balcony. there´s a cafe on the street below that roasts their own coffee and it smells so good!

more room

more room...note the 2-toned hardwoord floor!

Sandra (the landlord/landlady) who does most of the painting and all of the gardening

the view from our balcony at night!

Los Vaos

Last weekend we hiked to Los Vaos, natural steam baths. There were Eucalyptus trees growing all along the path and when we got inside the steam room we could smell subtle hints of Eucalyptus. Ahhhh...Aromatherapy! The steam room was VERY hot. We could only take the heat for about 20 minutes but it felt wondefully cleansing. The whole operation is run out of one family´s house. We at breakfast there, played with their puppies in the sun and headed back down the mountain. A neat little Saturday!

Stupid American Moment 1:

As we were walking down the mountain on Saturday we came upon some cows grazing on the path in front of us. They were so cute and the whole situation was so picturesque that we couldn´t help but talk to the cows... just a little. As we turned the corner, continuing our cooing, we came upon the cow´s owner, Manuel, a guy about our age just doing his daily work. He was nice enough not to tease us and we ended up chatting with him for a while. He is friends with Sandra (our landlord) and offered to deliver fresh milk to our apartment once a week. So now we can drink our hot chocolate and think of the adorable cows.

Estonian Hitchhiker Circumnavigates the Globe:

Last Saturday night we met up with our friend Lisa, the coordinator for our Spanish school. She was hanging out with 2 of the new La Paz students, one of whom has quite a fascinating story. She is from Estonia and has made it her personal quest to hitchhike the entire globe. She started hitchhiking a year and a half ago from her house in Estonia and she estimates it will take her about 7 years to finish. Her final destiniation is Japan where she plans to settle down as a potter. She has never made pottery but she will learn. Bryce discussed with her the dangers of hitchhiking alone as a woman and she agreed with him, saying at least if she dies she will die doing what she loves and won´t have lived her life in fear. They wouldn´t let her cross the border into the U.S. from Canada, so a Native American man who she had met on the road bought her a flight. I love meeting all sorts of people here, but so far, her story takes the cake!

Namasté

Last Sunday we registered for an unlimited month of yoga at the Yoga House here in Xela. It´s a group house and most of the instructors live there. It´s 10 dollars for a month of unlimited yoga! That´s about the cost of one walk-in class in the US. The only class offered on Sundays is an advanced Ashatanga class. Bryce has never taken a yoga class. I have taken some beginner classes but I don´t know what Ashatanga means and I´m not very talented when it comes to ¨strengthenging my core¨(a.k.a I am jello). We decided to go for it. That was last Sunday. It is now Saturday and we are just getting over our soreness. We have a lot of work to do, but with unlimited opportunities!

More Weekend Fun!

The weekend before last we went with some friends to a soccer game- Xela versus Huehuetenango. Our team is called the Xela superchivos(literally, the super goats!). It was a swarm of drunkness complete with firecrackers aimed in the general direction of the crowd and confetti made from newspaper that fell in our food. It was a fun experience that ended in a tie, but who was watching the game, really? Not us.

That same weekend, on Saturday, Bryce and I spent a sunny afternoon sitting on the street with Martín(the landlord) while he sold his jewelry. We just talked about his life in México before he moved to Guatemala with Sandra, how he got into jewelry-making, and all sorts of other stuff. Bryce bought me a beautiful necklace made of seeds. Martín told me I can hang out with him and learn how to make jewelery, which sounds like a lot of fun.

Stupid American Moment 2:

Bryce wore a Tshirt to Spanish class the other day that said APO Theta across the chest. APO Theta is the co-ed service fraternity in which Bryce and I first met. When my Spaish teacher saw Bryce´s shirt he looked sort of alarmed and asked Bryce what his shirt meant. After some prodding, we learned that Teta in Spanish means tit and APOdo in Spanish means nickname. So Bryce wore a Tshirt that essentially said My nickname is tit across his chest. Neat.

Volunteering Updates:

Tuesday was the Voces de Cambio photography exhibit and graduation ceremony. It was lovely! Four students and one teacher from my Spanish school came to watch the program and two people from the clinic also showed up. It was nice to have the support of friends. As I mentioned in my previous post, the director of our Spanish school´s daughter is the Flor de Pueblo or la Reina Indígena de Xela. I invited her to speak as part of the program and she was adorable. She forgot a couple words but no one cared except for her, of course. The photos and essays were beautiful and it was wonderful to see such confident and capable young women sharing their views of the world and their opions with the public. I was honored to be a part of it and I hope and I can be more helpful in the future by getting the organization some funds to continue with their imortant work. Here are some photos of the event:

the artists´self portraits! I love these!

the sign-in table

Lisa browsing the exhibit. Our friend and Spanish school coordinator.

Mariela, flor de pueblo, awarding the diplomas

Bryce is conducting a survey of local pharmacies´ pricing structures in an attempt to save the clinic money. Pharmacy expenses are the clinic´s most costly, and Bryce estimates that he may save the clinic 5-10% of its annual budget. Bryce is also in control of all the petty cash flow in an out of the clinic, which in the past has been very disorganized. I think they found the right man for the job.If you want organization and precision, Bryce is your guy! Here are some photos of the clinic:




I can´t wait until school starts in January so that I can start being useful to the clinic. In the meantime I may be spending some time with 3 adorable Guatemalan kids a couple afternoons per week while their mom takes guitar lessons. Their mom is the sister of the director of my Spanish school and they live right next door to the school. Their names are Stephanie, Emily and Diego (or Diegito as he´s called)! On Wednesday we made paper guitars and started our own band...they taught me a song called Miguelito, El Gusanito/Miguelito, the little worm.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women:

November 25th, tomorrow, is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, an issue that is particularly serious in Guatemala. See excerpt below:

Violence against women in Guatemala has risen so dramatically in recent years that it has received significant international attention. According to a recent study by the Reina Sofía Center in Spain, more women die from violence in Guatemala than in any other country. So far this year, 122.8 out of every one million women older than fourteen have been murdered (Guatemala Human Rights Commission, 2007). In its report titled “No Protection, No Justice: Killings of Women in Guatemala”, Amnesty International stated that, “traditional systems of power and patriarchy remain largely unchallenged in Guatemala […] and stereotypes regarding the subordinate role of women in society are still firmly entrenched.” It is these “traditional systems of power and patriarchy” that allow such violence and that have narrowed women to the margins of Guatemalan society, affording them some of the lowest levels of education, health care, and political representation in Latin America (Central American Analysis Group and MacNabb, 1998). Although women’s organizations fought to have their rights recognized in the Peace Accords, women occupy few positions of political leadership. In Congress, 16 of 158 deputies are women (Gvnt. Guatemala, 2006), 1 of 22 Governors is a woman (www.inforpressca.com), and 8 of 331 mayors are women (AECI).

A collective of organizations that address issues of violence against women in Guatemala, including Voces de Cambio, is sponsoring a variety of activities this week and next, in honor of the national awareness day. Voces de Cambio will be helping out with a 5K tomorrow and there is a march on Monday. Wednesday Bryce and I went to an event at the municipal theatre that featured performances of all kinds by various women´s organizations.

San Francisco El Alto

Thursday I was sick with some sort of stomach virus but it only lasted 24 hours. Friday I went to San Francisco El Alto with a group from my Spanish school. SF El Alto is the biggest market in Central America. It was overwhelming. You could buy everything from fake Lacoste shirts to traditional clothing, to old sewing machines, to a sheep, pig or cow. I passed on the sheep but bought a brightly colored striped table cloth for our room and a bag for myself. I regret not having a camera but hopefully we´ll be back!

Today´s Trip to Fuentes Georginas!

This morning Bryce and I took a bus to Fuentes Georginas, a natural hot springs outside Xela halfway up a volcano. The ride was absolutely beautiful and the baths were certainly hot....maybe even a little too hot! Surrounding the 3 pools was lush vegetation (and a restaurant/bar). What more can you ask for?

Most beautiful picture EVER, taken by Bryce. View from the entrance to the baths.

Ridiculous mushroom tree at the entrance to the baths. Matches my ridiculous outfit!

Random FUN- Dancing Corn Men!!

Today when we got back from the hot springs there was some sort of agriculture festival going on in Xela. From what I could tell it seemed to be an organization promoting more food production within Guatemala to support Guatemalan farmers, instead of importing. Regardless of the cause, the dancing corn men were amazing!! They even posed for this photo.

Vamos Grano/Let´s go Grain, made of sawdust in the street