Face It, This IS Real Life

I cannot believe how fast this past week went. I really hope weeks start slowing down. Otherwise, this trip will be a blur! Maybe if I start being more excited for the summer, my time here will seem longer. I am scared to test this idea because maybe my brain will see past what my mind is trying to convince my head.

This week is my last week of Spanish lessons. I am sad because I will not see my friends at La Unión every day and I will have to try more deliberately to learn Spanish. The plus side of Spanish lessons ending is that my brain will not be in knots as much. One friend at school really summed out how we beginners feel at lessons:

“Yesterday, I said “bueno s’il vous plaît” and I don’t even speak French!" 

Field Trip Numero 3: A Macadamia Nut Farm

On Wednesday we visited a macadamia nut farm. Raúl said the name was a Spanish word for paradise. We learned the process from tree to cookie (or lotion) in approximately 10 minutes. After this short tour we could roam around the farm and check out the bamboo bathrooms. I was told these bathrooms are the most photographed bathrooms in the world. I decided to rebel by deciding that even if I had brought by camera on this trip, I would not have taken any pictures of it.

Family Matters

In Brazil I learned how much of a relationship can be developed without being able to communicate verbally. Here, I am learning how much relationships are limited by not being able to communicate. I love talking to people and getting to know people, but I cannot do that here because I cannot understand Spanish. It makes me sad when I think of the relationships I am missing out on. Also, it kind of makes me sad because most of my family knows English, but they are told not to speak it to us so we can learn Spanish better. I totally understand that, but I cannot help but think about it. Sometimes I talk to them in English anyway and they respond in Spanish. I am okay with this because I usually understand and at least they aren’t ignoring me.

It has been requested (by Dana) that I write about the mystery of my family. I hesitate to do this because, although Dana finds it hilarious, I find it rather frustrating (and I don’t know if it will make sense written out). Either way, here goes. When we arrived we were given a list of the people who live in our house. As I told you, we live with Cony, Luki, Francisco, Heidy, and Francisco. My previous post mentioned how we had a hard time figuring out which of four or five men Francisco was. Just when we had figured it out (basically the night after my first post) the mystery got even deeper. After dinner that day, Cony asked if we wanted cake. Of course we both wanted cake. She pulled out this really nice cake, so Jamie asked what the occasion was. “No occasion. Antonio just really likes cake,” was what I heard. This whole ordeal could have been entirely prevented if one of us simply asked who Antonio was, but the cake was all that was on our minds. A little later, as we reflected on our cake, we realized we had no idea who Antonio was. As the week progressed and my spying skills increased, I realized that indeed another man stayed the night in our house.

By this point we were 90% sure which man was Francisco, so we decided the other was Antonio. Of course, Antonio’s relationship to the family still had to be figured out. We started to assume that Francisco was a son, due to the role he seemed to play in conversations we had with Cony. This situation could have been figured out much easier if everyone actually ate dinner with us, but of course that never ever happens. At this point I will talk about the most awkward dinner yet (“besides the first one,” says Jamie). I thought we were making great headway towards the mystery of Rene, but I realized I was wrong as the web was spun even thicker. I decided to just be blunt and ask Rene how he was related to the family. “Ask Cony,” he says. This was really awkward of him to say, but I just went with it and asked Cony. She started going on about him being dead and 16 years or something like that. As she continued, I made more sense of what she was saying. Rene is Cony’s husband. They separated after 16 years. “Francisco was 13 and Luki was much younger.” Of course you see the problem in this translated quote from Cony. She does not even mention Antonio. Okay, so Antonio is not her son, but who is he??

Well, another night at dinner we got to talking about hair and Cony told a story. Luki had long hair and it was up in two pigtails. Antonio cut one of them off so she had one short one. She shock on my face had nothing to do with how surprising it is for a little boy to cut off a little girl’s pigtail. It had everything to do with Antonio and Luki being together as children. I think is all of the mystery for now. Speculation is still going around as to Antonio’s actual relation. I am currently leaning towards cousin. There is also a plan in place for Dana to come over and obnoxiously introduce herself to everyone and asks their names so at least we know who is who.

Más Sexy

Salsa lessons continued and this week the dance room was much more crowded. This was okay though, because more people meant more guys and more guys meant more chances for girls to dance (Last week we had to spend more time standing as we rotated through the three men.). For some reason girls from our group are super hesitant to learn to Salsa. According to short interviews, a lot of this comes from not wanting to be embarrassed. I cannot sympathize. After this past Monday’s lesson, we met Rob, who has henceforth proved to be a good friend. He also reminded us of the zoo trip happening the next day.

The Zoo

On Tuesday Manuel came around to all the tables and asked who wanted to go to the zoo in about 20 minutes. I was hesitant to say yes because I did not know how focused my teacher wanted to be (What was I thinking? My teacher never wants to be focused.) and she was wearing heels. But she said she wanted to go so ten minutes later we were waiting for the bus to take a group of us to the zoo in Guatemala City. I was pretty excited because I really like zoos. I really like animals, but I don’t love them so much that I hate to see them in cages. This is the perfect balance for a zoo-lover. When we got there Manuel said something but I was in the back of the group and distracted by something so I didn’t hear him. I caught the rail end of his hand motions though, so I thought I had a pretty good idea of what he said.

Me: “Did he say to go everywhere?” 

Brenda: “No. He said stay together.”

At the zoo I really revert to childhood. I ran around from animal to animal and really tipped my teacher off as to just how crazy and juvenile I am. While some people doubted my sanity, I had a stellar time at the zoo and really appreciated being able to go.

Field Trip Numero 4: Guatemala City…Round One

Right after lessons on Friday we loaded into a little bus and headed for Guatemala City. We went straight for an archaeological museum which I am sure was very interesting, but due to our location, all the plaques were in Spanish. This was slightly sad, but what can you do (Besides, like, learn Spanish)? I know that museums kind of have a bad rap, but let’s face it, museums are pretty interesting. You go to a museum and get to learn about something that you previously have no knowledge of. I never thought I would miss not being able to read the plaques at a museum, but this was about stuff I seriously wanted to know. Pictures and pottery are great, but those plagues probably said a lot of interesting stuff.

After the museum, we went to a pretty big mall. We were given half an hour to check things out. Paul said there was a restaurant in there that had a sweet fish tank. This wasn’t a not-your-grammas-flan fish tank either. This had sharks and sting rays. Since my previous plan was to find a nice bench and stare at people for a half hour, I decided that finding this restaurant would be a nice warm-up. I took Dana with me and after many escalator rides and a trip on the elevator, we found the place. They would not let us into the restaurant, so we just pressed our faces up against the windows for a few minutes. Even from a distance, it was a pretty cool fish tank. The fish tank really got Dana in the mood for one of those coffee-smoothie things from Starbucks, so we went there for the rest of our time. We met back up with the group and a few of them were buying bubble tea. This reminded me of my Core 200 trip to Chicago. That trip rocked socks.

My favorite part of the mall was something that I was not even present for. In fifteen minutes Jamie went into a store, grabbed three dresses, tried them on, and bought three of them. That is straight up skill.

After the mall we checked into the hotel. Jamie and I got our own room. This was okay with us because we got our own bed which meant I got four pillows to myself. Using four pillows blew my mind yet did not lead to especially wonderful sleep.

We walked about five blocks to a restaurant for dinner. Dana only walked in front of unyielding traffic once. Everyone learns their lessons after once, some people learn it sooner. The dinner table talk was extremely stimulating and everyone surrounding Paul learned a lot about social studies. We discussed a vast number of topics and a lot of people got to put in their say and have their questions answered. It was a dinner that some people will ponder for dinners to come.

When we returned to the hotel, the post-dinner craziness commenced. Even though we were on a steady 9 pm until 6 am sleeping schedule, Jamie and I managed to stay up until 1 am or later doing random craziness. Evidence is somewhere in cyberspace, although I am not at liberty to say where.

...and then there was night and some of us thrashed a lot.

The next morning we went to the National Palace, which is where the President of Guatemala lived until too many rocks were thrown through his windows. This building was super pretty. It was filled with beautiful artwork and displayed the work of extremely talented carpenters. After that we went to the market, a catholic church, and lunched at a chicken place. If you want me to come up with some details about any of those places, let me know and I will see what I can do.

We got home from this trip and mass napping ensued.

Ayer

Dana, Jamileh, and I went to mass yesterday. Previously, Jamie went to the 6:30 am and 4:30 pm masses, but we all went to this one to hear Raúl play the marimba and flute. Raúl is a teacher at La Unión. We have become pretty tight and even have a secret handshake. This is Raúl and Rob at the zoo.

I couldn’t understand mass, so I decided to read some of the Apocrypha. It was pretty interesting. After mass I went to the English-speaking church I attended previous Sundays. I am really glad I did this because there was a guest speaker and he presented a really nice message about rejoicing.

For dinner, we all went to La Peña del Sol Latino. When big groups come, they ask for food to be pre-ordered, so we picked what we wanted on Saturday. Starting about 4 pm, Austin and I got really excited for Paco’s Nachos, which we both pre-ordered. Paco’s Nachos are “as big as he is!” I got a little worried when Paul said that Paco had been losing weight recently, but neither Austin nor I were disappointed when the nachos came. Everyone left that restaurant super full and we talked about what would happen if any of us sneezed. General agreement: the results would not be good.

There is Week 2. Let me know if you have any questions.

Peace, peeps. Love you guys.

Jamie’s blog: jamieinantigua.blogspot.com

Dana’s blog: guatemala2013.blogspot.com

P.S. Pens like never run out of ink, but I the first two weeks here two of mine have. This is unfortunate and ironic because for once in my pen-using career I legitimately have a limited number of pens. They would run out now.

OH MY WORD!! This very day I was organizing my bag and came across the letter my family wrote to me on Day 1. I was all, “I wonder if I can read this now.” Sure enough, I could read it and sure enough it said this non-direct quote: “Antonio and Luki are your new siblings and Cony is your new mother.” I was seriously appalled. That whole time it was right there! And then as Jamie and I left our house right after we were saying goodbye to me and Antonio said goodbye and I said, “Goodbye, Antonio.” It was a beautiful moment.