This morning, I was struck by the realization that what once was unusual or unnatural is now normal... since I have given a futile effort to my daily life blogs, I'll just tell you about a daily life weekend! (it's naptime and I'm a bit bored so this is unashamedly wordy and photoy)...
Saturday:
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| Pickups (usually Toyotas) always with wood. |
6am - Wake up because the sun's up and that's what you do! (Also because a guy was supposed to come and help the abuelo cut lots of wood so we have enough to get the wood burning stove through rainy season) Like any good Guatemalan, he didn't come, so I just had some quality time to read and wake up to the point where I felt conversational in Spanish.
6:45am - Feel equipped to have a conversation so I go out and start the coffee maker. While doing so, I check the water... We have some! And the sun looks like it should come up , that means it's LAUNDRY DAY! I learned last time the importance of planning ahead for Laundry Day so I put my clothes in a giant horsetroughish bucket and fill it with soap and water. They now have time to soak in the cleanliness.
7:00am - Take the maiz to the molino so it can be ground and we can make tortillas. To the shock of the aunt who owns the Molino, I do everything without help... bonus point! Bring back the Maiz and some fresh squeezed Cow's milk that comes in an old rum bottle (I have so many stories about rum bottles...)
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| The Abuelo - My new best friend |
7:30am - Sit down with Porfilio pequeño, Porfilio grande, Marie pequeño, and Marie grande for some moosh and corn flakes and corn coffee (as well as real coffee... Gracias, a Dios)
8:15am - Elly and the pequeños leave for work and school in Xela. Abuelos and I stay at the table and as they finish eating (it's hard to eat when you have only a few teeth), we talk about how the world failed to end as predicted. Then, they tell me that the atomic bombs are going to be what ends the world. They proceeded to tell me a story about how in 1945 when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, both of their families had a bunch of animals die and they didn't know why until they listened to the radio and heard that this really powerful atomic bomb was dropped on the other side of the ocean. Now that's something I didn't learn in the history books!
8:30am - I go to the butcher and buy 10.75Q of chicken. That's half the chicken... for about $1.30. Half a bloody, once living, chicken. It has bones, blood, and everything. I'm getting over being a vegetarian very quickly.
9:30am - Begin doing laundry. It takes no less than 2hours and I spend some time cursing myself for not doing any in the last two weeks because it takes so darn long! But then, I remember that last weekend, when I would have had time, we had no water. So, I get my iPod and become best friends with the Pilla as I take the clothes out of the horse trough, put them in the pilla, scrub them with the brush, and then dump bucket upon bucket on them trying to get the soap out. At one point, the abuela came up and put a bunch of soap in the brush's home... when she came five minutes later, I was still working on getting the soap out of the same sweatshirt. "Mucho jabon" (lots of soap), I say exasperated... "Bueno, entonces es limpio" (good - then it's clean), she responds. Welp. I'm weak.
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| The Pilla. Right side is for dishes, left for laundry and teeth brushing. The middle is sacred. No dirt there! |
11:30 - Finish laundry. Finally. Realize that it was one of the most therapeutic things I've ever done for myself. 2.5 hours of accomplishing tangible results while listening to music that gives me meaning to the thoughts I struggle with and an avenue to chat with God.
Also, at this time, I realize that it is 11:30. Wow, I'm slow. That was a long time of therapy... therapy is good. Begin cleaning my room - a deep cleaning that includes moving everything I own on a quest to find the slugs that leave trails all over the place when i'm not looking. Armed with salt and a broom, I don't find any... bummer.
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| Our wood-burning cooking stove |
12:15 - Abuela asks me to help her heat up the Tamalitos. We sit in the kitchen and chat as I sample the atole and make sure the tamalitos don't burn. I also throw some plastic bags in the stove... anything burns!
1:00 - Abuelo comes back from the fields and we eat some really tasty chow-mein consisting of the chicken I bought, whiskeil (a relative of the potato), corn, strange green things I don't recognize, chow-mein noodles, and a cut-up hot dog for good measure. Of course, we eat it with the tamalitos. What's a meal without tamalitos or tortillas? We sit around the table and the abuelo asks me his normal questions about the States... "China only allows people to have one child and the USA only allows two, right?" "How many million people live in the States?" "You don't eat tortillas there, do you?", etc.
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| Miyo ropa! |
2:00 - Realize it's going to rain so I bring in all my clothes and scurry off on a run to the mountain. As I run through the fields (literally the fields... only kilometers of corn in sight), I realize how incredibly blessed I am. I'm running (with a fair amount of walking) up a mountain, surrounded by corn, and have a view of 8 other little towns all situated in the mountains. I find a tree and climb it and sit there for a while and think. As I am in the tree, thinking, an occasional colorfully dressed woman with a basket on her head walking a cow strolls by... that's normal.
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| La abuela |
3:30 - Run home, including a brief sprint and throwing practice as I chuck some rocks at street dogs who begin chasing me. Note to self: Don't go home on that path again. Get home, chat with the abuelos for a bit and go to take a shower. No water. Oh well, use some from the pilla to avoid repelling all friends because of my stench and finish retrieving my clothes. Still no rain - just ominous clouds.
4:00 - Rejoice in the invention of internet as I talk with people I care about (including my host brother who is in our internet cafe two rooms away...) and am able to enter into community with people who are walking through the loss of Robin as well. I also work on job applications.
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| Carlos and his family dye, spool, and weave the thread |
6:00 - Marie comes into my room and says, "quiere acompañarme?" (literally, "do you want to accompany me?" Sure. This question has not, in the past almost 10 months, failed to provide some sort of entertaining adventure. We proceed to go, through the thick fog that made us think that the world really was going to end, to every Catholic family's house in Cantel. Well, probably not
every, but you get the picture. We end up at her house and wait for her husband, Carlos, to come home and talk about illnesses, etc. Carlos comes home and shows me the traditional trajes he weaves for a job. I am going to buy some from him and ask Tina's host aunt to make some bags and skirts and stuff from them. Anyone want anything? You will all be receiving Guatemalan gifts for at least the next 2 years... I like supporting my friends way more than buying things from Target or Walmart :) There's lots of color options that I'm putting up because they are BEAUTIFUL!
8:45 - The three of us make it back to my house and we sit down for dinner (more chowmein and my favorite type of Tamalitos... these ones with leaves have in them!). We also eat some chocolate cake that Elly brought home from work... happiness.
9:30 - Brush teeth in the pilla, realize there's still no water, and head to bed.
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| Sunrise! |
Sunday
5:45 - Get up, put on my swim suit, and Porfilio, Marie, Carlos, and I head to the pool. It's about an hour hike away down the mountain through the fields and along the river. I get a huge urge to bring one of our many water-cleaning machines in the States to Guatemala and make the river white and clear because it's gorgeous! Just really brown. There's also really great mountains to climb... anyone interested? Bring your rope!
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| You haven't been on a sketchy bridge until you've seen this one |
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| Too bad the water is foamy and brown :( |
7:00 - Jump in the pool. It's a hotspring pool and SO WARM. I know almost everyone there... evidently everyone I know in Cantel (only Tina's extended family and mine) likes to swim before Mass on Sundays. We play in the pool, they are impressed by my incredibly ugly butterfly stroke, and I teach people to do flip turns. All in a day's fun.
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| Houses destroyed last year by the hurricane... |
8:30 - Realize that it's 8:30 and we run, through the ruins from Hurricane Agatha last year, to the bus. Take a bus to the entrada and wait for a pickup or micro to take us home
9:15 - Eat moosh and cornflakes and get ready for mass
10:00 - Arrive at 9:30 mass... others arrive after us. We're near the back and I am able to sit in a corner and just spend time just praying, crying, and praying some more for my CPPC family as they come together for worship.
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| Tasty Helado! |
11:30 - Vamos al Mercado! Buy sooo much produce that Porfilio and I fear we're going to lose our arms because the baskets are so heavy and Elly is using her apron as an additional basket. We also get the best and most tasty ice cream you'll ever have in your life. Coconut covered with chocolate and peanuts!
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| El Gato... |
1:00 - Realize that what smelt so bad at Mass was my scarf. The blasted cat shared its urine with it!!! (It's a good thing I've had some positive animal experiences in the States or else I would hate all animals... peeing in my suitcase, eating my underwear, giving me fleas... no bueno!)
Begin soaking it and get ready for lunch. Take pictures of the family!
1:30 - Fish for lunch! A whole fish. Eyes, bones, all. We again talk about how the end of the world wasn't yesterday, it will be atomic bombs. Learn that you can get rid of fish smell by washing your hands and plates with limes. Do it.
3:30 - Finish 2 job applications! And now I'm writing this.
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| Porfilio Pequeno and the internet |
Rest of the day? I'll probably read a bit, continue glaring at the cat, visit Elly or Porfilio in the Internet cafe, and around 5, after Abuelo naptime, help make dinner, go with the abuelo to feed the pigs, and think about how I've learned to become content by being and not always doing...
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| And then I'll hope for a chicken and a beautiful sunset |
