It´s raining peaches!

Item of the week for you people in the US to appreciate- Having your seat bolted down! So coming back to my site a few days ago I got on my bus for what was to be my 6hr bus ride and it was full. Well, that means that they flip over a bucket and you sit on that in the isle till I seat opens up. That’s fine. However, I soon discovered that when the bus slows down or even slams on its breaks (which happens) well, my seat would move with me unlike other seats. So the first time I kinda went flying on my bucket and caught myself somewhat gracefully, the rest of the 30min I was on my bucket I held onto the other seats for dear life when coming to a stop. (This is a picture of turkey´s dating...really...they are seeing if they like each other)

Most Exciting Moment This Week- So I was staying in Antigua for a few days while taking Spanish buffer classes last week and my week was made by one thing. ER MARATHON!!! Yea, so I watched about 6episodes of ER one night including the season finally from this past season. Good thing is I am somewhat caught up, bad thing is there is a whole lot of “wait! When did that happen! What!? Who is that?!” going on.

Dangerous Peaches- So, when reaching for a peach on your tree, pulling the branch down to break the beach off the tree, when the peach lets go the branch snaps back thus making use of gravity and sending many more peaches falling towards your head, they hurt. Sadly, most if not all the peaches on my tree are either dropping unrippened or already rotten so yea, now I just have a bunch of black round fruits on my patio. However, I think I got 2 oranges growing. That’s something to look forward to.

Creepy Moment of the Week- So I am sitting at my dining room table typing in my journal and my table is covered with holes from termites of the years. Well, with my computer on my lap and the table in the background sort of out of focus (if you can picture that) and all of a sudden these holes start moving! I look up and ahh!!! The termites have all come out to go for a walk! So I start squishing and I won’t describe the feeling but lets just say those are some thick shelled insects..hahaha…

Have you ever noticed after squishing one bug or seeing it crawling somewhere, all of a sudden for the next however so long every now and then you feel like a bug is crawling on ya.

Cat likes Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches

It’s funny how many people have the first instinct to eat the entire sunflower seed before I get a chance to tell them don’t eat the shell

Guatemalan Life Lesson- No matter how full the chicken bus is, its always good to try and avoid falling on the bus driver while he is driving, that makes him mad (yea… someone pushed me accidentally)

Guatemalan Proverb: When cold, find a chicken bus that is full, squeeze in, and shortly all your chills will be carried away. However, take caution who you squeeze next to, for holding your breath (smell) for the whole trip will not be worth the warmth.

Somewhat Successful Baking! So I had a few hours to kill one day so I made cookies. When I mean needing a few hours to kill, its because I can only bake 5 cookies at a time in my pot. Haha..patience J So I made oatmeal raisin cookies that turned out pretty good! Thanks for helping me with creamed butter grandma!

Hey! Nice Teeth- So got a question for ya…. Few of my coworkers the past week got teeth. As in one had NONE and the other had a few before. Now they have a full mouth of teeth and look COMPLETELY different. So, do you think you are suppose to compliment someone on something like and say “Hey! Like your teeth?” Just sounds kinda odd to me.

(I like this picture. The colors more so. She is pouring the medicine into little bottles)

Aww! I miss……” So one day during Spanish we took a break to give my brain a rest before it exploded out of confusion and frustration from Spanish grammar and I went to the capital with my Spanish teacher and we went to one of the nice shopping centers and I ate Subway for lunch and we watched X-Men 3 (in English! Even though I couldn’t help but continue to read the subtitles in Spanish). It was a lot of fun and we also stopped by a Borders wanna be store and I had a piece of carrot cake. It brought back so many memories it was kinda a bummer but God has his reason for me being here, regardless how much I miss drinking chai latte’s in Borders L

Hmm… Guatemalans and Gringas have a different taste in fashion I think- So I went shopping with one of my friends from work over the weekend. We were trying to find shoes for a dress I bought to wear in the US at the weddings and we also ducked in and out of some “ropa” stores (used US clothing) looking for who knows what. Well, she would pick up something and say “How about this!?” and I would give her a look of confusion not sure if she was kidding or if I should be happy but say no. So yea.. I learned very quickly that when shopping for something specific, best to stick with my fellow gringas because otherwise I am going to come home wearing some FUNKY stuff.

Whats Your Favorite Food? So… I like to ask people what’s their favorite place, favorite food, favorite drink, stuff like that just to make conversation. Well, I have discovered that with the indigenous people in my communities I can’t really do this. If I ask what’s your favorite food, most of the time they are “Beans, eggs, tortillas…” because that’s the only food they know. It’s really odd to hear this. I will ask, “ok, out of all the foods, what’s your favorite” and they will say “beans”. Another lady I asked one day when we were having a LONG talk about a lot of different things what food she would want to eat if she could that she didn’t normally eat (had to get specific here) and she said pizza. She hasn’t had a piece of pizza in 15yrs. So I am going to try and visit her one day and take stuff to make pizza. Love this cross cultural stuff!

Time for some fun food info!
- Eating tamales in Guatemala on Saturday night is a common tradition. These aren’t tamales like you have had either, they are different, kinda of wetter version you could say. So my host family makes them and sells them so every Saturday night and I buy two of them for $.15 each. I eat one for dinner and then have the other for breakfast. It’s become almost a requirement that each week I must have my tamales.
- I love Guatemalan street food! It’s dangerous in the sense that you can get sick from it depending on what it is because either the food isn’t prepared sanitarily or the food has gone bad already. Common things are: cooked banana with stuffed with black beans, ganachos (kinda like a mini tostada), pupusas (a stuffed tortilla-ish thing with cheese, pork rinds or something else inside), taquitos, empanadas (folded tortilla or bread with who knows what inside), hot milk with rice (pretty good!), a hot drink that is either made out of ground corn, ground fava bean or ground plantain (the banana you cook), fried plantain chips and a cornbread style bread is one of my favorites. I haven’t gotten sick from anything YET. Other common street foods are: cut fruits and veggies (EVERYTHING from pineapple, mango, papaya, cucumber, radish and whatever else is in season) you can buy a bag for anywhere from $.15-.50 depending on the size of the bag. They love putting chili seasoning and lime on their fruit. EWWW!!! Peanuts are sold on several corners in my town for $.15 a bag. Guatemalans are big on French fries and fried chicken but that doesn’t look appetizing at all on the street.

God Bless Ragu! So my friend Candy and I decided to cook dinner at work Sunday night since about 7people had stayed the weekend in Tejutla instead of going home since we have a 3day weekend coming up. So we went to the market in the morning and bought fresh veggies, cheese and spaghetti for dinner. I picked up some bread on the way to cooking and well, it was a long night. I tried to make tomato sauce from scratch from a recipe I quickly glanced at before leaving the house. I put some onions, bell pepper and tomatoes to boil for a min and then into a blender with some water to make sauce. Well, made more of a thin soup. AHHH! Then the power went out and we discovered that when toasting bread in the dark, burning them is a lot easier for some reason and you rely on smell to know when to flip them. We had very little light but it wasn’t enough. Then we found some emergency lights but the bread was already “toasted” by then. So we improvised the sauce, tried to drain some water and added a lot of cheese. It turned out pretty good so they say. I thought it was kinda bland but the guys ate it. So how much did it cost to feed 8 people? A total of $5.00!

Stop smelling me! So every now and then I get tired of my hair being in a bun and the extent of smelling like a girl coming from my sunscreen I put on everyday. Thing is, my hair is always up because if I leave it down I get so many cat calls and whistles and what not because I am blonde that I hardly ever walk around with it down. Well today I got up in the morning and decided I wanted to try and feel like a girl and not another sweatshirt, worn jeans and pony tail day. BIG MISTAKE! So I put my hair up (can’t tolerate the whistling) but put on a little eyeshadow, used pink chapstick instead of the clear aloe vera stuff I get from PC and sprayed smelly stuff on me and that was enough to make my “want to feel like a girl moment” complete. Well, in the office one of my guy friends greeted me which for girls is a kiss on the cheek and he said “Woah! You smell good! Wait, close your eyes! Oh! You painted your lips!” AHHH! So the rest of the afternoon people would walk by and lean in to smell me and start laughing. It was funny but it got to the point where I would be talking to someone and then someone would come from behind and I would hear this inhaling behind me and turn around and they are smelling me and smiling. Run Liv run! Yea…not gonna try and be a girl at work again.

(we are cutting labels to put on the alternative medicine jars)