Kinda tough to drive a canoe, the gringa can dance! and in my opinion manufactured turkey is better than campo turkeys

(this is the opening to the river in RioDulce from our lodge)

# of mosquito bites I got in Rio Dulce- 5
# of times I would be walking on the platform to the main lodge in the dark and would stop to look around (again, dark out) thinking there was something in the swamp that was going to eat me- 2
# of times I walked to the lodge praying “God, please don’t let the jaguar eat me”- same 2 times
# of times I ate Subway last week- 3
# of days till my sister comes- 8
# of days till my mom comes- 14
# of days I have had present cold- 9

Something I want for Christmas, that is not possible- A fireplace. This was at the Thanksgiving house and it was mesmerizing.

Cost of hand made wool blanket- $30 (its sooo warm!)

When you give a 4yr old a kite, and it flies, be prepared to chase the kite after they have let go of the string in excitement

Weirdest Good Food This Week- Green beans coated in egg whites and then fried

Nicest Compliment This Week- “Olivia, you don’t dance like a white girl” (at our Christmas party for work)

Guatemalan Proverb- Thee who driveith with a ton of cinder blocks on thy truck, must not speed around corners, nor cut thy fellow driver off, for disobedience of this rule shall result in loss of entire load of blocks.

Most Painful Moment- On chicken buses, once you get on they start to move and so you walk down the isle, holding all your stuff, while trying to hold onto the handle bar above to get to your seat. Well, this bus was breaking a lot and at one point I fell forward and ran my shin into the bar of the seat. My shin swelled up to the size to where I could cup my hand around the area. I put some ice on it when I got to the training center and my supervisor asked me “why is the leg of your pants all wet?”. A week later I still have the bruise and scab.

Funniest Moment- I am helping one of my coworkers learn English. He already knows a lot from self teaching but now he trying to form sentences and pronunciation. Its hard to explain what his mistakes were and it sound funny on the blog but I can tell ya that I haven’t laughed that hard in a VERY long time. I would teach him vocab words and then try to think of other words that sound similar and then make a sentence. The road we were driving on was extremely dense fog and so I taught him “fog” in English and then I thought of the word “frog” which I don’t think they even have here in Guatemala. So then I told him to say the sentence “There is a frog in the fog on the road” and he gave me this “you crazy gringa!” look and so yea, it was probably a lot funnier in person.

Other Funniest Moment- In Rio Dulce, when Tamara and I were on the canoe, which was about 20ft long and maybe sat 3inches above the water, we were trying to paddle down our little jungle river to the entrance to the main river. Well, if you can picture a river about 25ft wide lined with various trees, kinda swampish, that is what we were in. However, I think we managed to hit every single tree in the river. We would paddle and for the life of us we could not make the canoe go straight. At one point we were at that position that we were stuck in between two trees trying to go forward and backwards. Kinda like that commercial where the little car is trying to turn around and gets stuck between two walls.

“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” 1 Corinthians 13:7

Ginger Bread Update- I sent an email with a collage of pictures from the Ginger Bread project to the PC people in the main office in the capital and they sent the picture to the head offices in Washington D.C. and the project got rave reviews. I am still trying to think of a project for Valentines day. LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW IF YOU HAVE AN IDEA. I have decided to dye eggs for Easter in April. I am hoping to do an art project with them every 2-3months if possible. Let me know if you have any ideas that don’t need electricity to make.

Christmas Baskets- In Guatemala it’s a tradition to give Christmas Baskets filled with food. In the US they are usually cheese, crackers, salami, fruit and so on. Well here it’s a little different. For example my work gave each person a bag filled with nuts, saltine crackers, a juice box, bag of marshmallows, Doritos, 5 apples, bag of grapes, powdered tang stuff, can of sardines and chocolate somethings. My trainer came up with the idea that we should take all the products that we work with in PC, like my peaches, honey and other volunteers have tea, candles, shampoo, recycled paper, and other items, and put them into a basket. So Marsha and I spent many many hours putting together 15 baskets and then using a borrowed blow-dryer to put the plastic around them. Guatemalans have this thing where it seems like most gifts come shrink wrapped in plastic. So we set 10 of them into the main office in the capital and another 5 went to the U.S. Embassy. The wooden baskets cost $20 and the plastic baskets cost $17. So far we have only sold 5 of the 15 so we are getting a little anxious because we can’t really afford to not sell them, plus picking up all that stuff and bringing it back to the village is a real pain.

“I will gladly spend myself and all I have for your spiritual good” 2 Corinthians 12:15

Work Christmas Party- Our work Christmas party was here in Tejutla in a room not built for 60, but we made it work. The other 6 girls or so in the office decided we should dress up. I have a strong issue with wearing skirts in my village, only because that is more unwanted attention. However, I bought a really pretty skirt last weekend in Antigua, with money I should not of spent, and decided it was a good time to wear it because its Guatemalan as well as very long. Only issue is it’s a wrap around skirt so I wore shorts under it for fear of it coming undone. I kept sending text messages to Jake to see when he was going because they said it would start at 8pm, well, I got there at 830 because no one ever gets there on time. So I walked into the room by myself and there was 2 other girls there, and about 40 guys, and yea, AKWARD! They expressed with whistling and what not what they thought of my skirt. So dinner was good, chicken, rice and sliced carrots and mystery vegetable (like every other holiday catered dinner here). Then came cake and it was really good but because I am sick I didn’t eat much of it. Jake was shocked I didn’t eat it because the cake was actually good and not the typical wet cake that we usually have. One of my coworkers, since Valentines Day, has said “I can’t believe you didn’t dance with me” when its clearly the guys job to ask here. Which I always remind them of. So this time, I went up to the guy in charge of the music and I told him to play a meringue song and to say over the microphone that “Mauritzio, Olivia is waiting to dance with you” which thoroughly embarrassed him (my intention). After that my coworker said I was a good dancer which is fun coming from a girl that can dance really well. Then to pass out the baskets they numbered the list of guests, 1-61 and so they called a number, you got the basket, had to say a small speech, then you called another number, that person said a small speech, and 61 small speeches later, it was very late into the night. So no more dancing and off to bed I went. At 1130 (that is really late for me here).

“Potluck? We have to bring food? What?”- For my other Christmas party with the smaller association, I suggest a potluck. Otherwise it would be chicken, rice and funky salad again. So I told them about the idea of a potluck which they literally sat there and tried to figure out the concept for about 45min. Half our office is guys and in rural communities in Guatemala, guys DO NOT cook. At least not where I live. So I said they could bring forks and plates and what not. Then there was the huge concern of “we have to bring food for 12 people!?!?!?!” I tried explaining that its fun having everyone bring something they are good at making to share and what not. Here’s the issue… In the U.S. generally we like trying new foods, a variety of nationalities and like to try out new recipes. Here, not the case at all. Most people are happy with the handful of different foods they have been eating all their life and you can teach them how to cook something, but they end up going back to the traditional foods. So I just know that they are secretly plotting behind my back to have someone bring chicken, someone bring rice, and someone bring tortillas. I am thinking of making pumpkin pie and I am going to try and bring the most Gringa food possible. I got a box of Tuna Helper that I might make J

Them Devils Are Back- So once again the devils are walking around the streets at night. Unlike last year, I have gotten pretty good at avoiding them this year. I discovered that if I put my hood on when walking around at night, that I kinda blend in with them.

Thanksgiving- I went to a PC staff members house for Thanksgiving with 6 other volunteers and his family. I can say I lived up to the tradition of gaining weight that day. The appetizer was a crab dip and crackers and nuts. I haven’t had crab in who knows how long. Then dinner was two turkeys (one US, one from a village) and we had a taste test to see which was better. The wild turkey or the manufactured turkey. The vote was half and half. Then we also had ham, again, not sure last time I had that. Along with a bunch of other really good stuff. At the end there were 3 pies to choose from and I only had room for half a slice. I think I am still full from that dinner.

“Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me. Any because they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them. And I will reveal myself to each one of them” John 14:21

Rio Dulce, Izabal- On the eastern part of the country is the Caribbean side. A whole different world compared to where I live. Over there is flat, tropical, green jungle and Caribbean and either ladino, Garifuna (decedents of the slave trade) and very few Maya people. Where I live mountains, cold, tall green trees and Mayan culture. I went with Marsha, Tamara and her friend. We stayed in a cute little hidden lodge hidden in the jungle off the river. You had to take a boat to get to and from the lodge and going down the side river to get there felt like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland (minus the crocs and elephants). The place had hammocks and tiki torches on the main patio and then to get to your individual cabin you walked on elevated walkways because it was literally built on a swamp. It was a great place to just relax, read, and try and play the German version of scrabble. We went and visited a castle down the river one day that was built in the 1500’s and I was convinced that the creator of Mario Brothers for Nintendo had seen this castle because they looked very similar. Another day was spent in Livingston, a predominantly Garifuna town. That day happened to be National Garifuna day and so the women had put on their traditional outfits and they had a parade in the street. It was really hard to remember I was still in the same country. The boat ride to Livingston is about 2hrs down a gorgeous jungle lined river. However, one of the memorable parts of the trip was this little café on the other side of the river from where we were staying. It was owned by a lady from Holland who spoke 5 ½ languages. This café had a revolving menu and so they would make apple pie, once it was sold it came off the board and up went ravioli, when that was all out, that came down and up went quiche. So we spent many hours sitting there, reading magazines, drinking fruit shakes (I forgot what they are called in English) and would watch the chalk board. When they would wipe something off and started to write something new we would get excited and order our next item to sample.

My Week in the Capital- So for a week during November I was in the capital doing 3 days of routine medical exams and tests. They check you for anything and everything basically. Everything is fine which is lucky because some volunteers didn’t fare so well and either contracted or were exposed to various diseases which now require medication. However, there were highlights to this trip. I got to eat Subway each day which has become my favorite treat here in Guatemala. Its only $2 which I can afford for lunch because each day they have a Q15/$2 special. Meanwhile Marsha and I stayed with a host family in the capital. The dad works for the embassy and then there was a mom and two high school age kids. The NICEST family a volunteer could ask for. They helped us make the baskets, the mom taught us how to crochet, Marsha got to watch I don’t know how many hours of the show Lost on DVD, I did a lot of reading of magazines they got from the states and the best part of all, great great food. One night they ordered Dominoes and Sushi because I told them I was in sushi withdrawl and that I was going to search for it while in the capital. Then this dressing they had was really good and so the mom gave us each a bottle to take back to site and the dad and I were talking and I was saying how cleaning your veggies in bleach makes them taste like pool water and he had this stuff from the grocery store that cleans veggies but doesn’t leave a bad taste so he gave me a bottle. It was definitely an odd experience living in such an “American” environment. On Friday we had a mid-service conference for the day and at one point our supervisor showed us a mini-slide show of the past year’s work and it really made me miss my little village. I was glad to get back after being gone for 10days.

Careful With Them Blocks- I was traveling back to my site on the bus and this flatbed truck that was carrying what looked like a 1000 cinder blocks was driving kinda crazy and cut my bus off. Then up ahead was another flat bed truck carrying the same amount of blocks and they started to have road rage. So my bus pulled back because we were going around a curvy mountain and everyone at that point on the bus was standing up watching because one of them was either going to go off the side of the mountain or hit the other. So they finally collided and the crazy driver lost almost his entire load of cinder blocks in front of us and the other one lost a few but wasn’t damaged. Meanwhile they hit a small car. So the not so damaged guy stopped his truck. The driver from the car hopped on our bus and my bus drove over the cinderblocks and proceeded to chase the guilt truck. We knew we were following him because we would see random blocks in the road. Then we lost him down a side road. Not everyone here has insurance so when in an accident you basically barter to settle it. So that is why the driver of the small car was chasing the other truck. To get money to pay for his car. Of course, I took a picture as we were passing the blocks getting ready to go on our wild goose chase.

Quick Snipit About Me- I am doing good. I can’t believe I have been here 15months now. I am now at the point that each tradition/holiday is a “aww..this is my last time I will see them burn a stuffed devil in town” moment. The weather here is very odd. Some days are absolutely freezing, other days are quiet warm. I have now gone to the same church twice. The second time they said “they are back!” and were very excited to see us. There are parts that are a little odd still about the church but I am trying to look past those. I am enjoying my time here. They say your second year is better than the first. I definitely feel more settled in here. I feel like I am a part of this village. Work still continues to frustrate me. Sometime to the point of almost tears but I try not to let it get to me. Its funny I was sent here because I have a degree in Marketing and I hear my professors voices in the back of my head saying all the thigns I learned. However, most of the time, the business applications I try and teach these people here are just totally foreign or not culturally sensitive and so in a sense, me having a marketing degree doesn’t matter much. It comes down to how creative and flexible can I be in trying to teach these people what I know from the US, but in a Guatemalan language.