Bad Cat Week, Operation Ginger Bread House and I need to go to used clothing shoppers anonymous

# of birthday cakes made that came out cooked!- 1
# of batches of icing made that I gave up and just decided that the margarine that wouldn’t integrate with the chocolate was an added chunky bonus- 1
# of sweaters/sweatshirts/jackets in my wardrobe- 21 (I know, I need to get professional help)
# of people that looked at the picture of my bent cucumber on Flickr- 38
# of hours spent traveling to and from the capital in one day to get a shot- 14
# of parades watched this week- 3 (watched the same one twice)
# of hours spent traveling in bus this week to somewhere outside of my site - 57.5hours!! (NOT including work travel to the communities which is anywhere from 20min-1hr commute)

First off… want to send a giant, humongous, gumungous CONGRATS to Juan and Jessica! I think if it’s a girl you should name her Olivia. If it’s a boy you should name him Nemo. haha

***OPERATION GINGER BREAD HOUSE***
WHAT- Making ginger bread (graham cracker) houses for Christmas
WHO- Me, a few other volunteers and 50 kids in one of my communities
WHERE- Vista Hermosa (Beautiful View)
WHEN- November 18th
WHY- These kids live in the poorest municipality in all of Guatemala but when I visit them they are ALWAYS smiling (which is uncommon for many kids sadly). I want to do something fun with them for the holiday season
HOW- With your help! This project will cost about $100 so I am asking for anyone out there who would like to give these kids the opportunity to have some fun.

Wells Fargo Bank Account Number- 6579-783116

If we reach the following amounts, this is what the money will be used for:
$100 buys one Gingerbread Project
$200 Gingerbread project and buys a women’s group holiday art project
$300 Two Gingerbread projects and a women’s group holiday art project.
$300+ The previous as well as an additional $ will be used to buy families something other than beans and eggs for a Christmas dinner (i.e. turkey which is a huge luxury here)
If you have any questions or want to know where to mail a check if you are unable to make it to the bank, please feel free to email me. peacecorpsolivia@yahoo.com. If you make a donation you can email me your name and address and I will be more than happy to have the kids help send a thank you card. Please try to have donations in the bank by November 8th as I have to make a long trip to buy all the supplies. So next time you are at the bank please remember the kids of Vista Hermosa. Thank You!!! Ch-Hontey! (“Thank you” in Maya Mam, not how you spell it, but how you pronounce it)

Happiest Food Moment This Week- I ate Subway twice! I have discovered that is definitely a treat I look forward to when going to the capital or Xela.

In Guatemala- For whatever reason, the clouds lie very low here a lot of the time in the drive up to Tejutla from San Marcos. It’s the coolest thing to literally be driving through the clouds. It’s not like fog, lese dense looking. You can actually see the shape and them moving as you drive by.

Did You Know- To get grease or anything else that usually requires hot water off a pan, use sand or dirt to scrub it. To bad it took me 10months before someone told me that.

Most UnOlivia dinner this week- Bowl of boiled fresh peas ($.60/lb) topped with a little bit of Marriott butter, salt, pepper, and imported sprinkly parmesan cheese. REALLY GOOD!

Good Thing- I love used clothing! Went for t-shirts, but came back with: Cashmere sweater, an A&F wool sweater, an Express peacoat and a really not me, but very retro as Erin puts it, American Airlines work jacket. All for less than $10!

Bad Thing- 3 out of 4 of those items are dry clean. Called Grandma for how to wash that stuff directions and so far so good.

Guatemalan Independence Day: Sept 15th- So here are some highlights from this years Independence Day in Guatemala
- Fireworks at all hours as well as marching band practice starting at 6am.
- Saw two parades and saw one of them twice
- Ate some great street food!
- So people run from their villages to Tejutla with a torch (like the Olympics) and a chicken bus follows filled with water and supporters and so I watched many of those go by for a few hours. This country gets very pumped up and energized about this holiday.
- Day off from work!

Worst Cat Week in History- A week ago I found out that there were 4wk old kittens (no mom) living under the stove of my host family’s house. Of course I was excited so I stuck my hand under the stove to pull one out. Well, as I say, it went “kung-foo kitty” on my hand and did a lot of biting. I took it back to my house, it was scared out of it’s mind and living in my bathroom before I took it back the next day to be with the other kittens. Well, to me it looked sick. So I called PC which you are suppose to do whenver you are bit by an animal. I figured it I would just have to watch it for a few days to see if it has rabbies. Nope! Had to go to the capital to get a shot. So I left at 445am on Tuesday morning and got back to a friends site, 2hrs from my house, at 10pm at night. VERY long day. 14hrs on the bus. THEN! On Thursday, I opened the door to feed Mr. Grumpy his food and he was laying in the middle of the patio. I found that odd so I walked over to him and well, he was to never move again. I still have NO idea how he died. Jake came over in the afternoon to help me “take care of it” because I didn’t want to touch the dead cat. It was no problem for him. So yea, started out the week with 2 cats, now I am down to 0. I didn’t think I would really care that the cat died because he was a mean cat. However, I miss hearing him run back and forth across the roof when he knows I am opening up the patio door and having him eat my left over unidentifiable pieces of chicken from the tamales I buy.

Getting My Second Shot- On Friday Sept 15th, which is Independence Day in Guatemala I had to get my shot. Lucky me, everything closes then. However, PC being PC, they called the private tiny hospital-ito (anything with an ITO on the end of the word in Spanish means small/tiny) and they made sure they would be open, they said they would be expecting me. So Friday comes, I walk 7min down the road to the tiny hospital, no one is home. I bang and bang on the door and no one answers. Most if not all doors here in Guatemala are made of metal. So the way you knock is by using a coin and knocking on the door with that. It’s ear piercing and annoying but it’s the only way to get attention usually. So 10min later, someone came out and said they weren’t open (obviously). I told them I had to get this shot today and they didn’t seem to care but let me in anyways. So I gave two nurses the box with the shot and little bottle of vaccine in it and they asked me “how much do we give ya?” WHAT?!?! I don’t know! That is your job! At that point I was ready to just take a chance and get rabbies before I let these two ladies stick a needle in me. So I showed them the bottle which obviously looked like a single serving. So they put the needle in the top to draw out the vaccine and instead of pulling the syringe out, they pushed it in. No! That pushes air into the bottle! So yea, was actually somewhat nervous at the point. I remember someone telling me that if you get a shot, and it has air in it, that the air bubbles in your system can cause problems so I made sure they got every single bubble out of the shot before the put it in my arm. So they stuck it in, probably the most painful way possible cause it hurt more than they usually do. So yea, I AM NEVER TOUCHING A STRAY KITTEN AGAIN!

Update on the “What are the prices of your beans?” lady- So I went back to the market about 2 weeks later and I took the two women that helped me each a Starburst. They were VERY exciting. I asked them if they had those here and they said “who knows” implying they had never seen them before. So yea, that was fun.

Great Women!- So I am thinking of starting a women’s group with these ladies. They are part of my natural medicine community group. Not sure what exactly we will do. Cook, art stuff, chat, I will try and teach them business stuff, they will TRY and teach me their language Maya Mam’. So I took these pictures. I feel like a giant compared to them! Which, I am…

Our fruit is special- So also in the states I noticed that in the grocery store, all fruits and veggies look alike! When I go to the market here, I would be lucky if I could find two of any food that looked somewhat alike. However, in the supermarket in the states, you can be in front of a batch of red apples and most of them will look VERY similar. I now question back when I would go shopping in the states and pick up an apple and look for damage, what exactly was I looking for? They are all alike!!! You would be surprised how much damage a fruit can take to where it’s still edible. I eat some things here that most people would never ever give a chance to but as long as you have a pocket knife and the patience to peel or clean it, it can always be eaten

“It’s a Ja-Ja!”- So in the status when I world talk to my friend Lorena’s family in spanish, I would try to say it’s a joke but at that time I didn’t know the word for joke in Spanish so I said “Es una ja-ja” (It’s a ha-ha) which yea, just sounds really odd. So I told my host family here about it and they got a HUGE kick out of it so yea, guess what gets repeated a lot now. “Es una ja-ja Olivia!”

“Would you like chili on your fruit?”-In almost every part of Guatemala you can find fresh cut fruit stands. Usually mango, watermelon, orange, apple, papaya and a few other things are available with cucumber and radish also being options. Well, when I ask for my $.50 bag of whatever fruit they always ask if you would like lime or chili on it? WHAT?!? Why would I want to put chili on a perfectly good mango?! So one day my coworkers got a green apple fruit bag with the chili and lime on it and I tried it, and ya know what, pretty good! So yea, one more part of me that is slowly becoming Guatemalan. Now I always get my apples with lime and chili.

Embarrassing Moment of the Week- So I have had a funky rash thingy on my eyelids and around that area for awhile (nothing serious) so I put some of this white medication cream stuff on my eyes each night. The owner of the house came over around 9pm to pick up the money for the rent and well, forgot that the stuff was on my face. She was looking at me kinda funny the whole time and then when she left I realized “AHH!!!!” so yea, she now probably thinks the gringa is that much weirder.
Roll out the red carpet- Most of the bridges around Tejutla were washed out during the hurricane last October. Well, one of the major ones is getting finished and supposedly the president of Guatemala was coming to look at it since it was one of the most expensive bridges being rebuilt. This is also the bridge that to pass
it, you had to drive through the river while they were building it and for whatever reason they found it necessary to put a speed bump IN the river. Yea, no clue. Not sure who speeds through the river anyways.

This is Erin and I in Xela on Independence day. SHe is eatting a cheese filled tortilla (pupusa) and I am eatting a cooked plantain stuffed with black beans (rellenito)