Casino night

Not "Casino night" as in "we all went to a casino and drank and had an awesome time together", more like, oh yay, it's time for Kermes again and we have to do something to keep the kids busy for two hours... let's do a casino theme!! It actually worked out really well. As you can probably tell, I wasn't too thrilled over having to do Kermes this weekend. Things have been stressful in the clinic, I've been doing a ton of early morning med runs and the only thing I want to with my free time now and crawl into my room and be antisocial. This kermes was really easy for me though. I missed the initial meetings so I wasn't part of any of the planning, they just assigned me to a job and that was that.

Kermes is always a little nerve-racking for me because there's a decent chance that the kids are going to get bored and leave half way through the activity. Luckily, this one went incredibly well. There were different "games of chance" set up in the cafeteria. The kids could go to any station they wanted, as frequently as they wanted. If they win the game they get a ticket. Once they have three tickets they can trade them in for a chance to pull a prize ticket out of a hat. Half of the tickets were blank, the rest would give the kids prizes ranging from lollipops to stuffed animals. I think that was the secret of the Kermes success. The kids would have gotten bored with the games after 20 minutes, but the promise of toys and food kept them motivated. Everyone really had a great time.

This was our station (it was the ball-hidden-under-one-of-three-cups trick)

Kim shows her skill with the cups. She was seriously really good. At first we were taking turns with the cups, but we determined that Kim was better for the trick and I was better for congratulating kids :P

But not good enough to trick the babies! ;)

At first we were taking turns with the cups, but we determined that Kim was better for the trick and I was better for congratulating kids :P

Charlotte and Jack had Lanza de Aros, or Ring Toss. It was probably the hardest game of all of them. I tried and didn't even get close.

Knock down the cans. I'm really glad this wasn't my station, they did a lot of can picking-up.

I don't really know what the deal was with this game except that you had to pop balloons with your butt

The babies enjoying their hard earned prizes

Group shot!

Hooray for a really fun first Kermes for the new volunteers

Guatemalan Cooking Lesson

So I'm on my way out the door from work yesterday when Dr. Karla (our Guatemalan doctor in the clinic) pulls me aside and asks what my plans are for the weekend. I was caught a little off guard because she and I don't really have much of a relationship. She's cool, I like her, but we're just not the "hang out buddy-buddy" type. I thought she wanted me to teach English to her kids this weekend (something we'd talked about but hadn't put into action yet) so I hesitated to answer. After my trip to the farm, all I wanted was some quiet time in my beloved hammock. I guess she saw my hesitation because she quickly added that she wanted me to come to her house for lunch. Her mother in law had heard about my deep love for pepian and wanted to show me how to make it myself! Amazing!! I happily gave up my hammock dreams and took the bus to Chimaltenango this morning for my cooking lesson.

First of all, let me just say how great her mother in law is. She was super friendly and funny; she made sure to explain everything as she went along and let me take a bunch of pictures. She's Mayan and dresses in the traditional Mayan garb (I'm used to this by now since about a third of the folks around here dress traditionally, but I still get a kick out of it). She speaks exclusively Kaqchikel at home, so she was constantly having to translate into Spanish for us. On top of her being a really cool person, she's also a lawyer. She went back to school as an adult and now has a successful law practice in Chimal, so yeah, pretty awesome.

As soon as we got there, she pulled us into the kitchen and got to work. Her kitchen was one of the nicest I've seen so far in Guatemala. It was really large and similar to American kitchens (full cabinets and counters, kitchen table with chairs) but it also had my new favorite kitchen appliance, the wood burning stove. I had drooled over some wood burning stoves during some of my homesteading research, but they were put on my dream list since they tend to be so expensive. They're so gorgeous though:

Cooking with wood is definitely something I'm interested in, and now I'm learning that they're all the rage here! (Mostly because folks can't/don't want to pay for gas) The Guatemalan wood stove is the same premise as the fancy ones I like, just done way cheaper. It's basically a brick counter with a long trough. A chimney is built on one end and the other is left open for wood insertion/air. A thick piece of steel (?) is placed on top which has adjustable openings for heat strength.

I love these stoves!! I'm definitely going to put something like this in my cabin :) Anyway, here's how to make my favorite Guatemalan food, pepian.

First, we put chunked meat into a pot. You can use any kind of meat, I've had pepian with chicken, pork and beef, but I think pork is my favorite (no big surprise). Usually we use meat that has bones in it here since it's cheaper and tastes just as good.

On the stove (or in a broiler, I suppose), roast a large onion, four tomatoes, a few cloves of garlic and two chili peppers. When they're blackened, put in blender and puree. Pour over the meat (you should have enough to nearly cover all the meat. If not, roast some more.) Add one tablespoon of chicken bouillon and salt to taste. Add water to cover. Add a cup of breadcrumbs to thicken, then boil until the meat is thoroughly cooked and tender (an hour or so).

We made our own breadcrumbs by toasting leftover rolls

The pepian came out SO good. It's really similar to a stew, just serve it over rice. I'm really excited to get home and cook up a big Guatemalan dinner with Kayla for everyone. A few weeks ago the lady who cleans the clinic showed me how to make arroz con leche (rice with milk- it's like a wet rice pudding that you drink) and I already know how to make tortillas. The last thing I want to learn before I leave is how to make the awesome pureed black bean dip that the dentist makes, then I should be good to go :D

The farm

Well, Ezekial and I had our exciting trip to the north. We met in Parramos at 4:30 in the morning and started the 12 hour ride. Juan Carlos had gotten my hopes up by telling me that the buses were coach buses; we'd have bathrooms and movies for a nice luxurious ride. Turns out he was totally wrong; we had to switch buses six times and they were all either cramped chicken buses or old minivans. Two different buses stalled out and had to be pushed by the passengers before they'd get going again. I will give them this, though. Whereas the chicken buses usually fill to 150% capacity, these were only filled to maybe 105%.

Because the trip was so long, people needed to eat along the way. The vans don't want to lose time by waiting for people to get food, so they'd pull over on the side of the road and these ladies would surround the vans trying to sell their food through the windows. I actually had some really great fried chicken this way. If you look in the distance, you can see them doing it to a nearby van. It was quite entertaining, everyone shouting and trying to get you to buy their stuff.

We got up to town at around 5:30pm (LONG day of traveling) and headed straight to Ezekial's friend's house. The house belongs to an older man in his 80s, his wife and two grandsons (ages 9 and 12). It was a simple Mayan house, cement floors and corrugated steel roof. The house was pretty open, no walls around the "living room", more of just a cement patio with the roof overhead. It was good though, it was nice to be outside the whole time.

The bathroom left something to be desired. It was an outhouse and raised up off the ground about four feet, but there was no pit or anything underneath it. Everything would just hit the ground and stay there. High-five for not pooping for three days.

This is how we showered. We hand pumped water up from the well (very cool!) and then just poured it over ourselves. It was kind of hilarious to have the ducks in the farm run down to the pump every time someone washed themselves. They'd swim around in the puddles

Here was the shitty apart about the shower:

Open fields surrounding the shower are nice for rural Maine, not so much for a neighborhood with folks walking by every few minutes. Needless to say, I stayed fully clothed during my trip. It was a skanky but necessary decision.

And here's the rain water they collected. We used this for cooking and drinking, though I don't really understand why they used this instead of the getting water from the well. After the farmer's wife told me a "funny" story about finding mosquito larvae in the glass of water she was drinking, I switched over to only drinking the water that I brought with me in my Nalgene from NPH.

Behind the house was a little wood chicken coop. The chickens were running in and out and the farmer's wife kept walking in there in her bare feet. Eventually I walked over and realized it was the kitchen! It looked pretty clean inside, despite being the poultry pit stop.

There were a ton of baby chicks! This hen had ten of her own (is that normal?!)

A turkey comes to visit us in the living room

Before we could head out to the jungle, we had to get our machetes ready (by "our" I mean "their." They chose not to arm me for some reason.) The first thing to do was rub them in dirt to clean off the rust. This worked surprisingly well.

After that, he sharpened the blade with a file. This thing was crazy sharp by the time we set out

Because why not?

Then it was time to head off! We walked through the village for about twenty minutes. People let their animals run all over the place, I guess they just wander home at night

Finally we got to the end of the pueblo. We walked through meadows surrounded by the jungle. It was really beautiful. I also learned a good lesson about following eight year olds. David and I fell back from Ezekial and David's grandpa. Eventually we lost sight of them, but I wasn't worried because this kid does this walk everyday to work on the farm. We came to a barbed wire fence which David easily crawled under. I followed, but it was a lot more difficult for me; I ended up having to wriggle through the mud on my belly like some kind of Marine. We followed on the inside of the fence for about fifty yards before passing a gate. I asked him why we didn't use the gate instead of crawling under. He simply told me that he never uses the gate. Great. Not that it mattered much because I was covered head to toe in mud from the rest of our walk to the farm anyways.

Then it was time to enter into the jungle! A lot of farmers come through that way, so there was a pretty well-trodden path to follow.

Some kind of weird fruit we passed on the way. I've actually never seen a fruit growing directly out of the trunk of a tree before, I was impressed

We followed the path and finally it opened up to a clearing of corn. The farm was huge, way bigger than I expected. Here's Ezekial standing in front of about 1/4 of his crop.

David shows off the helotes (corn cobs)

Pineapple plants

The corn was really tall, but you could see a huge difference in the ones that received fertilizer and the ones that didn't. Note to self: when growing corn in Guatemala, money for fertilizer is well spent.

The farm also has a nice little stream running through it. It was pretty hot out (maybe 95 degrees) and the mosquitos were awful, so we splashed around in there for a while. Here we are taking a snack break.

I'm sure you can guess what our snack was (we had cooked a few before heading out)

A mariposa (butterfly) stops to give David a little luck

After an hour of hanging out on the farm (no real work was done, it was more of a status check), we headed out. I have no idea how this was decided, but for some reason we went bushwacking through the jungle instead of following the very nice, easy path out.

Maybe they were trying to give me a taste of adventure? Needless to say, within twenty minutes we were lost. I didn't freak out because both Ezekial and the grandpa knew their way around the surrounding pueblos, so I figured if we just kept going in a reasonably straight line, we'd eventually pop out somewhere familiar. It was a little disconcerting to see them notching trees so we wouldn't backtrack, though.

Luckily, after about 45 minutes of wandering aimlessly, we stumbled upon the path. We all collapsed and let the mosquitos eat us for a while before walking the hour back to the pueblo. The walk back was just as beautiful.

Wall etchings done by ancient Mayans

Well, maybe not ancient

We got home in one piece, thank goodness. I cleaned up as best I could and then fell into a chair with a happily purchased soda. Ezekial had some mystery plans to take care of and left for the rest of the day. I decided to keep to myself and relax.

I was finally happy, giving into my natural anti-social tendencies by sitting inside and reading my book. David comes up to me and enthusiastically spits out the question I've been dreading to hear since I arrived in Guatemala: "Will you play soccer with us??" I hate sports. I especially hate sports that involve me running or moving my body with any kind of coordination. I wanted nothing more than to lay there and read until it was time to leave, but his little face was so cute (plus it's so rare that someone begs me to be on their sports team. Have to take advantage while I can). I said I'd play as long as I could be goalie, which turned out to be a really good call. I barely had to move to block and by the end of the game they were all shouting "Yay Gordito!" which roughly translates to Yay Fatso, but it was said with love and true admiration.

After the game (we won, 3-1, though the fact that we won against three kids younger than 9, one of whom was wearing his sandals on his hands the whole time, seems hardly something to brag about), we climbed into bed just in time for a hurricane to hit us. A big tropical storm had been heading towards Peten for days and we thought that maybe we'd get out before it got us, but no such luck. It was pretty mild though, barely any wind, just heavy downpour all night. it was actually quite nice to sleep through.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30 and started our trip home. Six buses and twelve hours later, I got back to NPH and took the hottest, longest shower I've had in the last year, crawled into my bed and slept for ten hours. I had a good time on the farm, but it was really roughing it way more than I had anticipated. While the family was nice to me, I was really uncomfortable most of the time and happy to have only stayed for three days. I'm so, so happy that my next trip is to the beach next month!!

It's finally time!

I've been talking about this for months now, but the time is finally here! Tuesday morning I'm going to get up at 3am (UGH) and take a twelve hour bus ride to Peten, in northern Guatemala. Here's where that is:

I haven't gone anywhere north of Antigua during my trip here and I'm super excited to see a different side of Guatemala. We live in the mountains so we have relatively cool, arid conditions. Once you start going north it becomes a much more tropical climate. Peten is entirely rain forests and is famous for Tikal, a huge Mayan ruin (which some lucky visitor will get to see with me. Mom, Tracey, I'm looking at you).

I'll be spending three or four days up there with Ezekial, Tia Rosa's husband, helping to bring in his harvest on his farm and build some new fences. Details are kind of shady at this point. We're staying in the house of some dude who lives nearby? Maybe there's electricity? Maybe we'll just be eating corn from the farm for three days? Who knows, all that Tia Rosa keeps telling me is to bring a sombrero (which I'll be buying this weekend) and cowboy boots because the place is crawling with snakes and crocodiles. I asked her how cowboy boots would help me with crocodiles and she just laughed at me which was a little disconcerting...

Despite the possible killer animals, this is going to be an awesome trip. Do you know what lives there?! MONKEYS!! Naturally this calls for a goal list:

1) See a wild monkey
2) Take a photo of said monkey
3) See a poisonous snake from a very safe distance, like maybe from the bus window as we're leaving
4) I don't need to see a leopard, but if I do I hope it's while I'm taking a photo of the monkey or snake
5) Learn something about farming corn!
6) Get huge muscles from doing farm work
7) Don't die

I would actually love to be camping out in the rain forest (another life goal of mine) but since I don't know much about identifying hazards there, I'm ok with waiting until I have a guide. Besides, Ezekial doesn't seem to be the camping type, and I don't know about doing that myself. Tarantulas and scorpions scare me a lot more than bears back home. Oh yeah, there are tarantulas and scorpions too.

I'm going to take a million photos! I can't wait! I only wish that Tia rosa was coming with us, but it'll be a good bonding experience for me and Ezekial.