true life planet

Lots of people seem to like these lists, so for all you travelers out there, or want-to eventually travel, here they are:

TOP 10 FAVORITE ITEMS I PACKED:

1. small daypack instead of enormous backpack/bag: when you see people trudging around with enormous bags, that{s when you realize the meaning of the phrase less is more. It really is.

2. macabi skirts: I am such a believer in these skirts-for all the travel books and guides advice of women wearing more conservative clothes on the road, most backpackers I see are in tank tops and yoga pants or jeans. But my skirts are multi-use-they dry in 10 minutes and serve as towels too. They are a bit long and conservative..but I am a believer after being invited to a Mayan religious ceremony last month(the woman like my skirt!) and crossing the Honduran border on foot in one.

3. sunscreen:self explanatory. Besides, it’s ridiculously expensive in Central America

4. raincoat made from goretex

5. lightweight travel shirt thats kind of conservative-I keep it at the top of my bag, and slip it on when I need to for sun protection, for mosquito protection, for dealing with creepy guys.

6. silk sleepsack for dirty hotels: Also good for keeping the mosquitoes-or whatever they are -from biting me all night

7. vitamin c (emergenc-y packets) : good for long bus rides when you are really dehydrated

8. digital camera

9. nalgene bottle for water

10. a couple of pretty scarves/bandanas I brought and have used for everything you can imagine.

TOP TEN THINGS I HAVEN’T USED ONCE:

1. Rei travel clothesline

2. Most of my first aid kit I packed (except Neosporinand alcohol wipes)

3. jewelry: most of what i brought is too nice to travel in-even though I went for simple stuff, fake stuff is best-and anyway, cheap earrings abound

4. antibiotics, and just in case prescriptions

5. brought 3 pairs of socks, only need two

6. brought 1 too many shirts

7. book in English:not needed, lots of used book exchanges around

8. tons of underwear: really only need 4 pairs

9. makeup: not wearing too much

10. razors:um, sorry, not really that necessary after all.!

TOP TEN THINGS I’VE BOUGHT :

1. bright sarong scarf: It’s a blanket, tablecloth, scarf..and it’s really pretty, too. Breaks up the boring wardrobe

2. cheap plastic earrings always make a girl happy

3. maps, maps, maps

4. hot sauce(Guatemalan food is..bland, to me anyway)

5. salt and pepper

6. books in Spanish

7. garbage bags (good to line the inside of backpack when it’s raining)

8. peanut butter (you CAN live on it, actually-good for long bus rides)

9. some kind of cream people use here to put on mosquito bites, because I apparently have very sweet delectable blood, and have bites everywhere, no matter what I spray myself with

10. fireworks…always good to have a few packages of these with you!

gg

Next Route :

Tomarrow leave Copas Ruinas by bus to San Pedro Sula(should be there by 10 am).
Leave San Pedro Sula for Ceiba; then Ceiba to a little town on the coast for the night.
From there, take a little boat to the Pig Islands(no, sorry-apparently no pigs there-or at least not many); The Pig Islands are below the Bay Islands. They are very small, no tourists, and cheap. Apparently the island is run by women-we hear about a womens cooperatively run cheap hotel, so we plan on going there. The island apparently has crystal clear blue water, no mosquitoes….and no tourism infrastructure. Perfect!

Also, it is the only place in the world pink boa constrictors live. Hmmmm…!

Should be sleeping on the island tomarrow night, plan on being there for a few days before bussing thru the countryside of Honduras and along the coast back into Guatemala.

Next destination in Guatmala: I don’t know exactly yet! Read the rest of this entry »

We,ve been here for about 2 days, in the town of Copan Ruinas. The town is very small, touristy, and has a good infrastructure for tourists without losing it’s Honduran flavor.
It is located right next to the Mayan Ruins of Copan, as well as lots of other things of interest.

We had decided to come here for New Years, thinking visiting the Ruins on New Years Day would be a good start to a good New Year. When we arrived the hotels were all full as well as the cheap hostels, so we kept asking prices and finally ended up in this strange hotel near the cemetary.

The hotel is run by a rather energetic Honduran woman, her husband, and numerous relatives seem to live there. As a matter of fact, only family seems to live there-we have only seen 2 other guests there the entire time we have been there! They seem to have a multitude of businesses going on, including a hair salon off the dining room… The husband works at the grounds of the Ruins, and also is a mosaic artist. He showed us photos from his job is Spain, outside one of the large museums…many photographs of a large mosaic with entirely white tile. He also has created an enormous mosaic from found tile in part of the house. The entire family is a bit looney but very friendly. Read the rest of this entry »

Um…crossing the border into Honduras is not exactly as easy as Lonely Planet makes it out to be. This could be because we are two women traveling together and the guidebook we have is written by a man. It could be because we chose a different route than the gringo bus tour.
Who knows? At any rate, it was dangerous as hell and definitely did not match the description of what I had read. Read the rest of this entry »

Right now I am writing from Escipulas, a town in Guatemala on the border of Honduras. After a wonderful Navidad in La Esperanza, my friend and I decided to travel together to the ruins of Copan in Honduras and then thruout Guatemala for a few weeks.

So we planned (as much as one can here) and left La Esperanza yesterday for Guatemala City at 6 am in the morning. We took a chicken bus, which went insanely fast and kept me bouncing in my seat..luckily I had a seat in the back of the bus with no luggage rack, or I would have hit my head several times at least. I was a little bit paranoid about getting robbed, because everyone says the buses get robbed on the highway, but nothing happened in that regard (although lots more chicken buses to go…so..!) and there I am with my daypack and knowing I would be an immediate target…but, as I said, nothing happened. Read the rest of this entry »

My house is right in the middle of a milpa, or maiz, field.

This past week all the maiz was harvested, and I am finding the whole process really interesting..maybe because I am from the USA, where everything is harvested by machine.
Harvesting the maiz is a laborious process, and from start to finish takes about two weeks.

The milpa is divided into parts-each family member, or family group, owns a small part of it. Each family group shows up on a different day, or days, to harvest their part of the milpa.
Work begins very early in the morning, with truckloads of people showing up-and everyone works very hard, even the children. Read the rest of this entry »

So for some time, I´ve been wanting to write about time-Guatemalan time-and how it is affecting every aspect of my life.

Time here is relative-nothing is ¨on time¨at least not by my standards at home. In the past , when I first arrived, I would spènd entire days frustrated that I couldn´t seem to get anywhere or get anything done…but lately…I think I´m liking this ¨Guatemaltecan tiempo¨-and I´ve got no choice, anyway, but to go with the flow!

I´m just trying to have a sense of humor about it all-after all, there is no other choice!

For example:

I needed photocopies one day, for my art class. In my mind I had the enormous photocopy shops of the USA in my brain…but such effieciency was not to be… I was eating lunch with a Guatemalan friend, and had mentioned before the meal that I needed photocopies. She said this would not be a problem, and she had a friend nearby who had a copy machine in her pharmacy shop ( I should mention that most little shops have a multitude of businesses under one roof-for example, right now I´m in an ¨internet cafe¨ that also sells containers of gas, helgados(ice cream) and religious music, which is blasting so loud it´s hard to focus on my words and not write the lyrics!).

So, after lunch, off we went to the friend´s shop. It was 12 noon. My class was all the way across town, at 3:00. We entered the shop, and my Guatemalan friend explained what I needed-30 copies total, or 15 booklets of two pages each.

No problem, says her friend. I looked at the ancient photocopy machine in the corner and thought to myself that it didn´t look up the task, but decided to go with the situation. My friend reassured me that it will only be about 15 or 20 minutes…so we went a walked around for about half an hour, and when we returned…only two copies were made. This didn´t look good to me, so I suggested we find a different shop. But the woman reasssured me, it was no problem, really! Apparently someone needed some legal copies right away, so she had done those instead…. so off we went again.

When we returned, in about half an hour, it was grim. Only 8 copies made! The photocopier had run out of ink, and her husband was unhappy and wanted her to close for lunch. He was very grumpy( It would seem men here don´t cook.) and she was close to tears…still, when I decided to go somewhere else-she wouldn´t give me my originals! So I was stuck there, waiting. Since she was upset, we were trying to be nice about it all. Meanwhile, people were coming into the pharmacy for medicine and candy and so on….she was the only person helping all these people. At this point it was 2:00, and still not many copies.

We decided she needed another half an hour, so we walked around some more. When we returned..total chaos! People had come into the shop, and all of them were helping this woman assemble the booklets. She was in tears, and when she saw me she said, my husband needs his lunch right NOW!

So three hours later..I had my 30 photocopies. I literally never walked so fast in my life to get to my class on time. I had to walk all the way across town-since taking the bus and expecting it to actually get there rapidly would be ridiculous!

Which gets me to the topic of the buses…when you want one, to go to a particular location-it´s rare one actually shows up. If it does it is so crammed with people that I prefer to walk!

Here´s another example of Guatemalan time: I asked for my windows of my house to be repaired.(I´m the only one with a few broken windows..). This has proved incredibly complicated. I asked for them to be reapired about two weeks ago-and here´s what happened:

There is a guy that repairs windows in my area, so my family called him and he said he would come-two weeks ago! So after it was pretty obvious he had forgotten or something, we called again. Turns out he hadn´t forgotten-he just hadn´t gotten around to it yet.

Okay, I told myself, they will get repaired, he will come. Meanwhile I am freezing, due to the fact that it is the coldest month here of the year. Okay, I told myself, as I could see my breath at night and every morning. Okay, I told myself, as I developed a desire to sleep in ALL of my clothes that I brought with me.

So, nothing happened..he never showed up. I mentioned this fact to my family, and they decided to take it upon themselves to repair the windows. It turns out the glass is sitting by the front door of a house on the property, and all they needed to do was cut it and glue it into place. (So why didn´t they do that before? I have no idea!). Of copurse , there is a glitch-they have no glass cutter, and no putty to glue it into place. Someone goes to Xela to find a glass cutter, buys it, and then somehow one of the jkids plays with it and it is lost. A different person says they will buy the putty, but apparently this proves very impossible for some mysterious reason.

Everyday I go off and hike in the bosque, visit friends etc. Everyday I give them the key to my house. Everyday they say that this is the day that either the repair guy will show up, or that they will do it themselves. Everyday I come home to no windows. When I ask why, everyone just shrugs..other stuff came up, I guess.

Finally, I used the duct tape I brought and cut up a bunch of cardboard. Now I have cardboard windows-and I am not so cold at night.

Why did you do that, they ask me. We were going to fix it. Really.

I said, that´s okay..I´m sure it will get fixed..eventually. Like in June.
Everyone laughed and said, Well, now you are becoming Guatemaltecan!

It is kind of nice to not rush around everyday, just relax. Having experiences like those above gives me a clearer picture of the difficulties of life here. It is diffficult to get to work on time, for example. The bus may not show up, or whatever. It´s difficult to make set plans or say you are going to be anywhere at any particular hour-anything could happen. You could be online and the power goes out(happens to me alot here); you could be walking down the street and get attacked by a dog(has happened to me); you could take three buses and walk loads to meet someone, but be stuck in the hot sun in the street waiting for them for two hours (has happened more than once to me).

The only solution is to smile and buy some ice cream from the street vendor walking by..and wait.

gigi

It is La Vida Loca!

The other night, I got invited to a Novena with the family I live with.

A Novena is something Catholics do, for a person who has passed away. Here, the tradition is that the Novena take place exactly one year after the person´s death. A year ago, one of the brothers in the family passed away, quite young, of cancer. So a Novena was held for nine days for him in his house, with the family and friends in attendence.

It was quite an honor to be invited along, so of course I said yes, although I was a little bit worried, as neither of my teachers were going to be there-so I was going to have to manage with just my Spanish! We all piled into the car, and off we went to the brother´s house.
When we arrived, I noticed two things immediately: one, there were only women there; and two, the room we were all supposed to fit into was tiny. I mean, like really small, doll size. i felt enormous, and sort of felt like Alice in Alice in Wonderland-the doorway way so small, and there were like 30 women crammed in this tiny room, all looking at the gringa in wonder.

Someone showed me to a plastic chair, and there I sat, looking around, observing the scene. There were women of all ages there, in slightly formal dress. Everyone was very sweet and nodding my direction-there was some concern whether or not I was a Catholic- and after it was discovered I was, things relaxed. All the chairs faced a shrine,with a big painting of Jesus; photos of the deceased; candles; and flowers. There was sort of a white tent over the whole thing, and the closest family members sat near this tent area in the front.

Music was passed around, and after much talking and pleasantries, the women all begaan to sing. It was really beautiful, and i thought it especially so because it was just all these women singing sweetly in this tiny room, lit by candles.

The main part of the Novena is to pray for the deceased person´s soul. This is done using traditional Catholic prayers and of course, the rosary. For those of you not familiar with the rosary, it is basically a series of prayers and pleas for assistance to Mary. It is always the same for a Novena. The rosary was completely in Spanish, and I tried to keep up, but someone had thrust a toddler on my lap, and she was entertaining herself by putting my rosary in her mouth-so at a certain point, I just kept count of the beads in my head.

The Novena was very difficult for the family members, as the man had died quite young and left a wife and two children behind. But everyone kept their focus on their part of the Novena(it was decided beforehand which person would read which part) and so it went smoothly.

After the Novena was finished, the food was brought out. For Novenas, there are special foods prepared that are only for similiar occassions. For this particular night, they prepared coffee and a sort of deep fried tamale, filled with sugar and black beans. It was very rich and very sweet. Everyone was given quite alot of food, but hardly anyone ate much while there-napkins and containers accompanied the sweets, and pretty much everyone packed up their food to take home for the kids and the husbands.

I really enjoyed the experience-I felt like I got a glimpse of something, a part of the life here, that I would never get normally. it made me really happy that I had decided to live with the family, and that they considered me family enough to include me in such a private event. (for those of you out there concerned with such things-they wanted me to write about it here!)

The other thing I really enjoyed was that I was at an event with only women. Such things are rare here-although I´ve been in kitchens while tortillas and tamales were being prepared and there were only women present-it´s different when it´s outside of the home, and a formal event. Apparently men do attend sometimes, but only the most immediate male family members.
I really enjoyed the women´s singing,devotion, and comraderie. It was a very fulfulling evening.

Next time I write..on Tuesday,,I´ll be writing about Dia Del Diable(Day of the Devil) which was last night. On this day, they have huge bonfires and burn all their trash, clean their houses, and the kids have more fireworks than I´ve seen in my entire life!

gigi

Well folks, it´s been awhile since I´ve written anything..sorry. I kind of got caught up in life here…as the new place I´m living is full of life and interesting events.

For those of you who have been reading along, thanks very much for reading and for your comments -the comments mean alot to me. (like that people out there are actually reading!) No really, on the days I´m sick or just needing some encouragement, the comments have meant alot.

So..living in La Esperanza..is totally different than Xela. Xela is great for quick internet access, the mercado (public market) and that sort of thing…but La Esperanza is cloer to the real life of Guatemalans. Actually, I live on the side of a mountain, close to La Esperanza-but the city of La Esperanza is about 1/2 hour away. Where I live now, the life revolves around the milpa, or maize field. Everything is related to the maize, and the cycle of the life of the maize. Read the rest of this entry »

So, I think it´s about time I talked about what I´m doing here in Xela, as far as volunteer work, that is. Read the rest of this entry »