A Day In the Life

So I have been here for about six weeks now and have some what of a routine. Not totally but I will tell you what a normal week for me looks like. So far I have always studied in the morning although there are students that study in the afternoon at my school. So I usually wake up around 6:30 or so because that is when the sun starts coming into my room. That is my room to the right. The baby also starts crying around then as well, I can usually lay in bed until my alarm goes off around 7 but than it is time to get up and start getting ready for school. I usually head down for breakfast around 7:25. Four out of five days breakfast is beans and a scrambled egg eaten with tortillas tamalitos (corn tamales with nothing inside cooked so that they are hard), or bread. I need to leave my house by 7:45 or slightly after to arrive to school on time. Going there it is all down hill so that makes it a little easier. 8 to 10:30 is class time working on grammar or pronunciation or what ever the theme is that day. Than it is break time there is always bread and coffee water or tea and of course fusbal or futillo as it is called here. It is the passion of a few of the teachers and some students as well. Than back to studying except for Tuesdays when there is a conference that I usually go to. Class is over at 1pm and I head back up the hill for lunch. Lunch varies a lot more than breakfast or dinner and is usually pretty good. It is the biggest meal of the day and some businesses close so that their employees can go home to eat. The afternoons vary a lot. Mondays the school show a documentary which I go to sometimes. But Monday and Tuesday afternoons are usually my days to get things done like washing clothes, getting money out to pay the school. Checking my email, going to the market or what ever other errands I have to run. Wednesday and Thursday are teaching English days so I have to hurry back to the school to get there by two in order to plan the class with the other teachers and than we teach from 2:30 until 4 an than discuss how the day went and things afterwards. Thursday is also football (soccer) night so at 7 we head off to a field and play soccer with students and some teachers. Friday afternoon their is a dance class every other week. which I usually go to and than at night there is the graduation. The picture is some of the teachers who always sing before the meal. It rotates every week who brings what one week the students provide the drinks and the school the food and the next week it switches and the students make food and the teachers provide the drinks. There usually are some students who go out afterwards dancing or to a bar. Dinner with my family is at 7 at night and usually consists of beans fried plantains an tortillas tamalitos or bread. Afterwards it is time for studying. Weekends vary I have gone on some trips with the school or else have free time to read study or hang out with friends. I have gone to two Soccer games here. They have been a lot of fun.

Pictures

Here are some pictures that I promised.
NO I do not have any of my stool sample although I thought about taking one.

This is a picture of who is called the Ugly King from the Strike of Sorrows. It is a play on the beauty pageants that normally take place at festivals. Instead they elect an Ugly King who is the person who can best make fun of politicians and the government or who is quick thinking on their feet.




This is an example of the kind of things that a lot of people wore during their parade. The robes are similar to the ones that the men of the Catholic processions use. They do sort of look like KKK members though. Each different major had a different color and a different float.


There were quite a few things against Bush. I figure you can read the first part and the second part I won´t translate but it does not say anything nice.






Now to switch gears a bit this is Semana Santa. The only pictures that I took were at night so they are not great but if you click on this one you can see the bigger version and see the guys wearing robes and half hoods. That huge thing made of wood is being carried more guys in robes. They switch every once in a while but they walk really slowly. I can not imagine what it does to their backs.


Same float as the previous picture. It is a little hard to see because of the lighting but Jesus (the guy laying down) is really dark skinned. Maybe even a color close to what his actual skin color was. It was interesting because it was one of the only portrayals of him that I say with dark skin.




These things were really cool. Of course this one is older and has been run over by a few cars but I saw it when they were making it and it was much more elaborate. It is made out of colored wood chips with a bunch of flowers and things. They make them in the street where processions than walk over them. Sort of like the Native American (and maybe Buddhist) tradition of making sand paintings just to wipe them away when they are finished. You can still see the shape of the chalice in this one which was probably originally filled with flowers.

I do not know how well you will be able to see this one. It is a stitched picture of the view as I look south from my house. It was a really pretty evening but I am not sure if the picture really captures the beauty. Definitely have to click on this one to enlarge it.

Getting Sick

CAUTION: THIS POST MIGHT NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES. ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK EVERYONE POOPS.
So getting sick anywhere is not really that fun but normally a bought of diarrhea I would just wave off as something that I ate or a night with a couple to many beers and keep on living. But here in Guatemala there are much worse things that one needs to worry about. We had been warned about things like parasites and amoebas in our welcome speech and all the places that we could get them. But I normally have a pretty strong stomach and figured that I would probably be all right. But low and behold I invaded by the little amoebas and caused to run to the bathroom every 20 minutes. Actually it was not that bad but after three days of it I decided that maybe I should get checked out just in case. So the school sent me to the clinic where I received my jar.
Now I have given urine samples before but I do not think that I have ever given a stool sample. Mind you this jar was not really that big in fact it was a baby food jar. And I sort of stared at it for a little bit not exactly sure how things were going to work. Of course this is not a set of vocabulary that I have in Spanish nor would it really be that easy to explain even in English. But I had all sorts of questions about aim and what if it overflows and how should I hold it. But the woman said that I needed to have it back before 4 PM and it was already 3 PM. And I really wanted to carry around the jar for as little time as possible. So I ate a snack and headed for the bathroom. It was actually easier than I thought. I managed with out making a mess and twenty minutes later I had my results back. Yep I had amoebas and I a high level of something else yeast I think. So i headed to the regular doctor who after poking me a bit and reading the lab results gave me two prescriptions one for the amoebas and another to bring back the good bacteria after I finished the first ones.
So I have finished the first meds and now I am on the second one and I am feeling much better I just hope that all those little suckers are dead and that I do not have to poop in any more baby food jars in the future.

La Huelga de Dolores/Semana Santa

So here in Guatemala and most of Central America Easter is not just a one day affair. It actually lasts a whole week and is called Semana Santa or Holy Week. It is a time for a lot for religious celebration as well as some rather non-religious revelry. Many people get the whole week off and most get at least Thursday-Sunday. Those that are not participating in one of the many processions, and have the money for it head for the beach or the lake.
However, here in Guatemala there is something else before Semana Santa called the Huelga de Dolores or the Strike of Sorrows. This a strike that the students of the public University here have been doing for over 100 years. It starts around the time that lent starts and goes until the last Friday before Semana Santa starts. On that last Friday the students have a big parade. In the past it has always been very political. The students would denounce the government or the police or the president. However, recently especially here in Xela it has become very monetary in nature. the students always went around asking for money from businesses and people in the weeks leading up to the parade and if the business would not give them money than they would paint the outside black or graffiti on it. But in the past they were not asking for that much money $5 or so from little corner stores but recently they have been asking for much more money. And it has turned in to a lucrative business for the leaders of the Strike. This year they did have a parade and there was quite a bit of political content to it.
How do I know all of this about the strike do you ask? Well part of the reason is that I had to translate a talk given at our school about it. I was actually really nervous about it before hand. It turned out to be not as hard as I expected. I managed to get all of the ideas across even if I did have word for word translations for everything that the speak said. Plus he was really nice about it and only said a couple of sentences before allowing me time to translate. Since than I have translated two other talks at the school. What is more difficult than understanding the Spanish is trying to write it down fast enough to be able to repeat it back in English.
I forgot my camera adapter today but I should have some picture of both the Huelga parade as well as some of the religious parades up soon.
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