Ton of fried rice, my icing with chunks of butter and my cat is a steamed veggie lover.

Another view of a crowded chicken bus

# of people that asked me if I was eating chicken food for breakfast when they saw me eating healthy cereal out of a baggie- 4
# of times I ate fried rice for dinner in the last week-4 (yep, made rice and didn’t refrigerate it and after 5days, was still mold free!)
# of days I have now had this cold- 5

BEWARE! When baking, if the box says mix at medium speed for 5-7min, you are in for a serious arm workout!

Bad Cooking Moment- No matter how healthy you are trying to be, an omelet made of only egg whites and tomato is NOT good!

Cat- So I made this veggie that is popular here called a guiskil for dinner one night and was going to eat the other half for lunch the next day. Well, that was the plan until the cat stole it from me! What cat eats a boiled veggie that tastes kinda like a zucchini!!?!?

Is their a manual for this lunch? Lunch one day at work was fish. Like they took the fish right out of the water, maybe took out a gizzard or two inside and fried it, head and all. Well, I for the life of me couldn’t figure out how to eat the fish, much less, what part was edible.

“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” James 1:19
(the brown guy in the middle is a pig)

“Here comes the pig!”- Every time a new group of volunteers gets to our part of the country (3times a year) there is a welcoming party. We went to Champerico, a black sand beach on the west coast about 6hrs from my casa. It consisted of expensive seafood that when you order a plate of shrimp, they give ya the ENTIRE shrimp including head, legs and every other part that God bless it with. EEEWWW! We also had some VERY hot weather (relative to where I live now), giant waves that would thrill most surfers as well as my favorite part, pigs walking around the beach. Granted the stray dogs out numbered the stray pigs, but it was still pretty funny to see. Driving down there we drove through very tropical parts of Guatemala with most of us agreeing on the idea that “THIS is where we thought we would be living. In the humid, banana covered jungle in tin huts with hammocks.”

The plastic fish knows all! Do you remember those little red fishes that say what kinda of mood your in “happy, in love…” that are made of see through plastic kinda like thick cellophane? Well, I bought one to bring back with me for the kids and took it to work one day. Well, the guys got a real kick out of it. All of them were confused except my counterpart, the fish said he was passionate which earned him a lot of grief from the rest of the office.

“Olivia..where are your colored beans?”- So thanks to an awesome gift basket I was given before I left, I was able to come back with a GIANT tub of Jelly Belly beans and there was no way I was going to be able to eat 5lbs of beans so I took some to work with me. Well, it was a big hit. Within a few days all the blue and red ones had disappeared, I did my best to steer people clear of the buttered popcorn beans and I myself cleaned out all the light pink grapefruit beans.

I have proven that “with every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. I started singing on the bus in English (not very loudly) and well, that got the people around me to stop talking and look at me. I am quite the scientist

God said Walk!- On the way back from San Marcos one day, I was arguing with myself about walking. I wanted to go walk before it rained, but on the other hand I was lazy and wanted to do things around the house. Well! That all changed when the bus got stopped at a road construction place and was going to be there for awhile. So everyone got off the bus and started walking and well, ended up walking almost 40min home. Guess that decision was made for me.

Can someone please tell me how I go to the states for a few weeks, come back, and a bucket that has filled up with water, a fallen peach and some dirt has magically sprouted 100’s of little TINY fishys??! Where did they come from!?

The gasless lawnmower- I was talking to my family one day saying I wanted to get rabbit in the market and put it in my backyard so it could cut my grass because it was growing like crazy with all the rain. Well, they said “why don’t you just borrow our sheep?” So they brought them over one morning and they stayed in the backyard munching away all day. They only got about ½ the job done. The cat was not enjoying them being there by any means.

This has been a dangerous week for my body!- burned my finger 2 (in the same spot!), cut hand with glass (not serious), and the worst of all, slammed forehead against edge of a wall VERY hard had a nice sized bump, like the ones in the cartoon, in a matter of minutes. Being back at high elevation my being impairing my judgment.

Is this not the coolest cucumber you have ever seen! I had to buy it for this very reason!

Save Them Apples!!! I was at a market in another town waiting for the bus to come by and was balancing on the edge of a drainage ditch trying to stay in the shade and avoid the buses that drive within inches of your toes. Meanwhile, a guy next to me was selling apples out of bushel and his sack fell right over into the ditch I was balancing on. Then starts the running of the apples down the drain and at first I was thinking “why did he dump his apples there?” then it hit me that it wasn’t on purpose. I jumped in (it was only a little wet) and started picking up his apples and handing them to him, while everyone else stood by and watched. Running through my mind the whole time was “ok, I know what goes into these drains: human waste, chicken guts, trash, run off water from who knows where” but my goal was to save this man’s apples. In the end we lost about 50apples or so and he wasn’t up for crawling into the drainage hole and getting them (it would have been possible, but very very gross)

Woman! Just tell me how much your beans cost! So every now and then for work I go to markets and get prices of veggies, fruits, cows, cheese and whatever else they are selling that is, or once was, alive. Well, when you go up to a lady selling whatever, and ask her how much it cost, she expects you will buy SOMETHING. So usually I leave with stuff I don’t really need because I feel bad not buying something. This time I put my foot down and said no, not brining home needless food. However, I met these one ladies that had a lot of the veggies I need prices for and I kept asking her “how much are your green beans?” and she would laugh and “say, I don’t know” and I would say “yes you do, there your beans!” and she would again laugh. Then she said “if you buy me a soda because it’s hot, I will tell ya”. Then I gave her my “soda is bad for your teeth, you should drink water” speech which didn’t do anything. So I told her if she told me, next time I would bring them a surprise. She finally told me how much her beans cost, $.23/pound.

Read Liv Read! So I was reading the Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier (same author of A Girl With A Pearl Earring) and I felt like reading for awhile, and that I did, for 5 hrs. Finished the book (203pages read that night). Then I just finished reading the book Where the Heart Is in about a week. Wehew!

Calling all simple recipes! I have homework for you people out there. Send me a recipe you like that doesn’t require cheese, cream cheese, balsamic vinegar, any meat other than chicken or tuna and spinach. I am getting burnt out on the stuff I know how to make here and I need a refresher of what foods you people “up north” eat. Oh, and please try to steer clear of egg and bean based dishes as well. BIG THANKS! peacecorpsolivia@yahoo.com


(this is in Champerico)
Peak into Olivia’s Thoughts- Well, came back to Guatemala, was VERY happy to see my “present life” and was excited to get back to things. However, work is still tough. Most of you know I am someone that ALWAYS needs to be busy. It’s not bad busy, it’s just I like to keep being productive and going in life. However, here that is not going so well. I am still having a hard time getting myself working at work which has definitely put the “do I really want to be here?” thought into my head several times. I am trying VERY hard to figure out what exactly I am missing here and have been doing a lot of praying. I am not going to leave though. I made a promise to myself that when I came here, I would only leave if it was for a reason beyond my control (safety, medical…) and well, being frustrated in my book just isn’t a good enough reason. So yea, I am trying to get back into a continuous Bible study but have been saying that for awhile. I am doing a Life Group series every Sunday which I enjoy (anyone have any of the other ones from the past year I missed? If so, email me and let me know what ya got. I am doing James right now) So yea, please pray that I find what I am looking for here with my work. It will be a very long 15months if I spend it trying to live weekend to weekend and counting down the days till the next time I can leave my job. I want to be a good volunteer at work!