Why do women scream at spiders after riding motos and falling victim to some odd jokes

# of times I was told: “Pretty Woman-Beautiful Eyes” by a coworker- 2 ( Run Liv run! Actually, he is harmless, its just kinda weird) # of hours spent in meeting on Thursday this week- 9 # of hours understood in the 9hrs of meetings- Approx. 4 Item I miss that can’t be shipped- Cafes! I really miss being able to go somewhere to study or read besides my bedroom. % of Service Completed- 18% (Can ya believe it’s been almost 5months!) # of nights spent sleeping in my $107 sleeping bag- Approx 120 Cost per day of using my $107 sleeping bag thus far- $.89 (and well worth it!) Cost per day if I use my sleeping bag for the remainder of my service- $.13 (just might happen) # of people working at Intervida now- 51 # of people working at ADICTA- 12 # of first names out of the 63 people I work with that I know- 20ish # of names that the avg. Guatemalan uses when introducing themselves- 4 # of names that I can try to remember if I want to know everyone’s full name- 252 (this isn’t including nicknames either) - Most Guatemalans have 4 names because they have 1 or 2 first names, then they also say their middle name as well as most of them have two last names (they use both mother and father’s last name) So it would be like me saying “Hello, my name is Olivia Cathryn Koran Jones” every time I meet someone. Then when they get married, they drop their mom’s last name and keep their father’s name and take their husbands last name but they put a De in between the two names. So let’s say I was to marry Ryan Gosling (The Notebook). Then my name would be “Olivia Cathryn Koran de Gosling” hahahah… (sometimes it gets a little squished with 4 men in the backseat of a truck. Exactly why I sat in the front...hahahahhaha) Interesting comment of the week from a Guatemalan- “Guatemala is beautiful, but it’s missing intelligence” (Coming from an 80yr old farmer) Funky food I ate this week- Pig foot soup. So actually, its not that bad. To me it really didn’t taste like much. The foot has the texture of really thick jello. Old Guatemalan Proverb: One whom has cold, cheap toilet paper that is not Downey soft, does not helpith thy nose that runnith. (Lesson learned. Even though I have a cold, and toilet paper is free at work, I should still give in and buy some Kleenex that way I can avoid getting to the point where blowing my nose isn’t painful ) Talk About Knowing my Post Man!- So every 2-3 days I go to the post office to check to see if my packages have come. Thing is, you know your post man knows who you are when…. - He says you don’t have any packages as soon as you walk into the door of the post office (what we call the post office…) - He stops you on the street, on your way to walking to the post office and says I don’t have any packages, again, before I even get a chance to ask him. - We are on a first name basis. His name is Yonathan (Jonathan) My 24th Birthday- So my 24th birthday didn’t feel like a birthday but more of a “What! I am 24?! Are we sure about this?!” feeling. So here are some highlights - My host family made a nice lunch for me, including mashed potatoes! The night before my birthday they asked me how much do I NOT like fireworks? And I told them I don’t prefer them assuming I had no choice, come 6am they would go off anyways. So come 6am on my birthday, I am laying in bed for about 1 1/2hrs cringing to wait for the 15seconds of firecrackers to go off outside my room, but nope, they never happened. So I have decided, waiting in agony for 1 1/2hrs is worse than just getting it over with at 6am. - For breakfast, I cooked. Which my host family could not understand why I was cooking when it was MY birthday but I wanted to. So have you ever wondered what you need to make French toast for 12 people? One load of bread, 12eggs, cup of milk, packet of cinnamon, some vanilla and a bottle of syrup. - I had a lunch with ADICTA on Friday before my birthday and we all ate in a comedor and had rice and chicken and soup. So they were very nice and gave me a bar of chocolate to make hot chocolate (whoop whoop!) and they also gave me a zip up sweater that is way small but I will wear it once, if I can, to show my appreciation. - Then I had a birthday dinner with Jake and his girlfriend Mary Katherine (other volunteer) and we had spaghetti, cucumber salad and quesadillas (having cheddar cheese is a big treat) and mom sent some poppers down so we enjoyed our crowns during dinner as well as the toys/jokes that came with them. Then the next door neighbor kids at Jakes house who I have never met, came over when they heard it was my birthday and gave me a gift. It was a very LOVED/USED teddy bear in a box. Then we finished off the night with scrabble. I lost. Tutoring English- So I have decide I won’t even attempt to teach English to people who haven’t had any training in it already because it is just not going to happen in 2yrs teaching them one time a week. So.. I have started to help a few people who already have taken English classes and need to practice. So one lady I am working with is part of my host family and she is taking the TOEFL in Feb and she has this huge study guide but she bought a pirated version so it didn’t come with the study guide audio cd but the conversations are in the back. So she has me read the conversations and she answers questions about what I talked about after. Problem is, it is a conversation between a man and a woman. I have discovered that I can NOT talk like a man clearly at all. So we have a conversation between “High pitched woman” and “Woman”. Why do Girls Scream? So I was in a community the other day working in a garden doing some weeding and what not with the farmers. Well, every now and then I would see ugly black spiders and would scream and usually jump out of whatever position I was in to the standing position. One of the farmers would run over and kill the spider with a machetti and go back to working. Also, I would run into the occasional giant slug but these were only worth screaming when I would accidentally crush them with my hand picking up something. EEWWW!!! So my question is. Why do girls scream when we see spiders? Not saying that all of us do, but a good amount. It’s not like I even tell myself to scream out of being scared, it just comes out. On the other hand, I don’t know if I have EVER seen a guy jump up screaming at a spider. Lisa…any input on this one? ( I think this picture is funny. Ok... So how many sheep can fit their heads into a pan to eat?) A Tough Moment- So a couple weeks ago I was on the bus sitting by a window waiting to leave and was people watching. We were parked outside a busy bus terminal/market and for whatever reason I noticed this woman hugging a younger man, about 16 or so. I am assuming it was a mother son relationship. So she was crying and he kept trying to walk off to a different bus but she didn’t want to let him go. So he finally got on his chicken bus to somewhere else. I prayed that whatever was making that woman cry, that God would help her get threw it. So then I noticed her walking towards my bus (again, this is in an area with about 10other buses and a ton of people so not sure what made these people stand out) and she got on my bus. So she walked towards the back and guess who sat next to me, the woman. So she was doing ok, and then she started crying again. I had NOOOOOO idea what to do. So I took a Werthers candy out of my backpack and gave it to her thinking maybe that would take her mind off things and she would stop crying. She accepted it. So she continued to cry and I almost started crying too because I felt so bad for her. I have a good feeling that her son was coming to the states to work because a lot of people from where I am living go to the states at some point to work and don’t come back for years and years. So about 1hr passed, and she has stopped crying by then and God has put it in my heart that when I got off the bus (because I was getting off at a stop before her), I was going to leave a note on my seat saying “Your son will be ok, have faith” but she changed seats to sit next to I think her other son. So that idea was out the window. So I just said a prayer for her and went back to staring out the window for the remainder of the 2hr bus ride. We got to a bus stop for people to get on and at the busier spots, there are people selling food outside of the bus and you can call them over to buy whatever. At that point I was starving and had no food on me. I usually don’t eat bus food because it’s not always cooked properly and the only food I will eat is bread because you can’t really go wrong with that. Problem is, the bread comes in bags of 8 or so pieces and I didn’t want to buy all that. So I decided to just be hungry for the last 2hrs of the ride. Well, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was the lady. She had gotten up from her other seat to bring me a piece of bread. I was SOOOO excited because I was hungry and I said “Gracias” and smiled at her, and she smiled back. That was the end of a really amazing, touching and God filled 3hrs. (Dinner for my birthday and Evas going away party) Wee! Off on moto I go!- So it finally happened! I rode a motorcycle. I had managed to avoid it for the past 2weeks or so out of fear but it came to the time where I had to get it over with. So for the past 2weeks I was scheduled to ride with my counterpart Luis but we ended up getting a truck when we were going out to the campo. So Tuesday night, I was talking to one of my coworkers and she was telling me who is a good driver and what not, and she said that Luis wasn’t one of the better ones and that I should ride with Wilver. Thing is, I hardly ever work with Wilver. Been praying for God to give me the strength to not be so worried and to just have faith that things will be ok. So come Wednesday, my counterpart wasn’t going out to the campo in the afternoon, but Wilver was and he said I could go with him. Thank you God! And it was to one of the closer of the communities to so it was a perfect opportunity for my first time to ride. So I got go on my motorcycle outfit (jacket, pants, gloves and helmet) and off I went. It wasn’t so bad. I have decided I don’t like curves because I still don’t get why the motorcycle doesn’t slip and fall ( I knew I should of taken physics in college!) Thing is, we only rode for 20min each way and even then, riding makes ya tired! (after you get back, not during) Ahhh! I work with to many men! So my first motorcycle experience wasn’t memorable because well, I finally did it, but more so because of the practical joke that I fell victim to by bad luck before I even got on the bike. So my counterpart Luis let me borrow his gloves to ride because they are thick and what not so I went downstairs and Wilver was giving me moto 101 and I was to worried about riding to even notice that when I was putting on my gloves, I felt something really funky in the thumb of the glove. I didn’t think much off it and thought it was some weird lining or what not. Then I put on the fingers and they didn’t feel the same. So I knew there was something in the thumb of my glove and pulled it out. It was a condom (not inside the wrapper)! Of course I screamed out of shock, threw it on the ground and by then Jake had come down to make sure I got off ok and he started laughing along with Wilver and a few other on lookers. Jake assured me it was not used and Wilver told me that one of the other coworkers had put it in the glove intending for someone else to find it as a practical joke the guys had been playing on each other, however, I happen to get the gloves before the intended recipient. So in the end, I was laughing, but man, you men are weird sometimes! My Walk With the Lord- Doing good in my walk. I am happy here in Guatemala, thanks to the Lord and prayers from all you people back in the land of Starbucks and Monday Night Football J My prayer requests for this week are that God gives me the strength to not worry about riding motorcycles, I figure out how to sell 2000 jars of peaches and that I continue to try and Shine. Verse that I found and liked: 2 Tim 2: 22-26 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.