Rain rain go away!

It has been raining for 3 days straight! No hiking, no running, no walking around, no nothing! Only Spanish class and then home. Apparently, there is a hurricane passing over the eastern part of Guatemala and we are getting all the rain from it! Que lastima!

To give you an idea of the proportion of this rain, here is a story from yesterday:

Marissa and I wanted to go to the Guardaria (the daycare here) and volunteer and hang out with kids. It's in a pretty rural area (dirt roads, 1 tienda, cows on the side of the road, wild dogs walking around, Mayan folks in traditional clothing...the works!) We took a bus to get there and it was pouring rain! We arrived at the Guardaria and the lady who runs the place tells us to get back home as soon as possible. "Es muy peligroso por tus" she says. Apparently, when it rains like that, there is so much erosion and the streets are so bad that they turn into rivers and creeks and it becomes impossible to get anywhere! She was worried that the bus wouldnt even come back for us! So we waded through the streets that were already beginning to fill up with runoff water from the crops and dirt 'streets' (ie- poop water from all the animals, giant broken off pieces of stone from the mountain, dirt and dung and what not) and made it to the main part of town where we had to wait in the pouring rain for the bus. Yes, it did finally come.

Thanks to North Face for my water proof rain coat...at least the top part of my body was moderately dry.

It was just so crazy to experience that because those people live there! I mean, this was heavy rain, but imagine what it must be like for them during one of the many full on hurricanes that the areas suffers per year.

It really makes me feel Santosha. Content to have what I have, content to be who I am, and mostly content to be able to have an experience to make me appreciate my contentment.

Just another rainy day in Guatemala

In Xela, it's been raining a lot and it's really beautiful to watch the rain and the mist in the mountains. We've been doing a lot of stuff the past week, so today we vegged out while it rained and watched that Mall Cop movie with the guy from King of Queens...in Spanish! The movie was terrible...I mean, really terrible, but watching it in Spanish was hilarious!

We had our first ride on the chicken bus this morning coming back from some natural hot springs not too far from where we are staying. If its has ever been possible for something one might imagine to be mundane to be super fun and also terrifying it was this! The chicken buses are recycled school buses from the USA. They send them down here, give them a makeover consisting of fresh paint, CD player, religious effegies, and maybe some crazy christmas lights. It felt cool to use the mode of transportation that most Guatemaltecos use, but I'm not going to lie, I did fear for my life a few times (especially when we passed a cargo truck going about 75 mph going around a curve on the side of a mountain). But we made it!

Tonight is Jason's last night here, so our family is throwing him a good-bye fiesta complete with comida Xelateca, globes, musica, and maybe a little vino. Muy excellente!

Guatemala: first update

Hola from Guatemala! So sorry I havnt been keeping up with the blogging. It´s been a bit crazy and the computers are super slow.

Anyhow..we´ve been here almost a week now (5 days) and it´s amazing. I can´t even really begin to describe how beutiful it is here, yet also poverty stricken and just SO different from the United States.

I guess I´ll try and say what I´ve done so far...

Well, first interesting thing was on the flight from Miami to Guatemala City. About halfway through the flight, midway over the Gulf of Mexico, our pilot comes on and says "Ladies and Gentleman we have to make an emergency stop in Cancun. We are having some problems with the air conditioner"
WHAT??? Thoughts running through my mind like dying, crashing, drowning, flying throught the air. But we landed safely and the airplane was surrounded by fire trucks! Again, thoughts running through my head like dying, exploding, burning. But we taxied safely and escaped the situation unscathed other than having to wait in the Cancun airport for about 5 hours.

But we made it. We drove to Antigua and sayed the night there. It was beautiful. The next day we traveled via mini bus to our town: Quetzaltenango (Xela).

Since I need to consolodate 5 days worth of posts into one I will now provide
highlights from the past few days:

- meeting our family (awesome mom, quiet dad, funny college student who lives with the family and goes to college in Xela, and three middle school aged daughters)
- 4 1/2 hours of Spanish everyday, one on one with my own private teacher
- building stoves for people with dirt floors
- good coffee
- sharing a tiny tiny tiny bathroom with 9 people
- walking around and feeling amazed and humbled
- hiking up a volcano to plant tree with children from the daycare
- tamales

I don´t know what else to say.

More to come...and pictures too!

Bon Voyage! Or should I say Bien Viaje?

In a few hours, I'll be waking up at 3:30 am to catch a plane to Miami and then to Guatemala. I'll be studying Spanish, living with a host family and volunteering in Quetzaltenango (Xela) for 3 weeks.

It's been a while since I've been anywhere for longer than a week. The preparation has been pretty intense. Either that, or I've been making it intense because I'm crazy. My head has been full of important decisions such as: Rolly bag or backpack? How many pairs of shoes do I need? Can I run while I'm there? Am I going to get diarrhea? Am I going to get robbed? What book should I take? What if I want those other jeans instead of the ones that I packed? What am I going to do without soy milk?

In the end, what does it all matter?

Important: Have fun. Be safe. Learn a lot. Do good things. Come home.

going...

We will be here.

That's what she said

When you think about it, any statement could qualify for a "That's what she said!".

I mean, when does it ever stop?

That's what she said!

packing

Packing is so difficult. I want to be prepared. And yet, every single time I go somewhere I don't even use half the stuff that I brought. I did to find the balance.

1 bag

3 weeks

Guatemala

urgh

Happy Birthday Big Sister!

Today is Bekah's birthday! She turns a whopping 28. Which, we decided, if you turn an 8 sideways it makes and infinity which must be somehow significant.

We are the same age, but she is 1 month my senior, so for one month she gets to be the big sister of the trinity of sisterhood. In her 1 month, she has far exceeded my wisdom and has cultivated incomparable tenacity when it comes to getting shit done. She will bake you a cake and write you a monologue before you've even had your first cup of coffee. She blogs (much better than I) and that's how I know all the awesome things that she does. Her seniority also affords her a scintillating sense of humor which easily makes her worthy of being the queen of birthdays and the perfect big sister.

Happy Birthday Bek! My life is better because you are in it.

so good

Not to be confused with coconut milk, coconut water is the juice from a young coconut. The young coconut is green and smooth and full of all natural electrolytes that replenish the body. It's hot outside...go drink some!

duuuuuuuuude...a seriously profound thought

Is time passing or are we passing through time?*

Is time fixed and we traverse through it; and if so, where are we going? Are we moving forward or just moving?

OR

Are we virtually stagnant (besides our everyday movements, which in the grand scheme of time are tiny and insignificant to the point where we could just be standing still and no one would even know) and time is passing over us?

*I feel certain that this must be an unoriginal thought, but profound nonetheless.

Freak out!

Oh man...

So, last night we watched The Road (Thank you, Netflix). It seriously freaked me out. I had read the book several years ago, and it seriously freaked me out then. I don't know why I went back for more!

The Road is a novel by Cormac McCarthy (some might remember him from No Country for Old Men...also seriously disturbing). It's set like, now, but after something catastrophic has happened to destroy civilization (nuclear war, perhaps?). The man (Viggo Mortenson) and his son (unknown little boy actor) are traveling on foot to the coast in hopes of finding something hopeful. They have a panoply of disturbing experiences on the road including a run in with people who have resorted to cannibalism!

Considering my recent obsession with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic events, I was severely rocked by this film. Old man Robert Duvall even alluded to the warnings and signs posited via the Mayan calendar. 2012 maybe???

See it. Or better yet, read it.

I want to live here...

Eugene, Oregon

The perfect mixture of city and town. A bigger, better Carrboro.

The Pacific Ocean
The Cascades
Seattle close
Portland close
Huge Bike Path
green
yes!

Mini Trip

Sometimes, you just have to skip work for the day and go on a mini trip. This time, it was Jason's turn to decide where to go. And that's totally cool, because I had a blast!

We went 2 hours down the road to Pilot Mountain. Who knew you could drive 2 hours and feel like you're in verdant Vermont? Well, I guess Jason knew. He's really smart about those things and a really good climber.

The trip began by us spotting a dog on the back of a motorcycle (pictured above) and you know that has to be a good sign.

We climbed, we ate mozzarella, basil and tomato sammies, we met some folks, and had a pretty sweet time overall.

And, it's only Monday!

Passive Aggressive....ewe

I think one of my biggest pet peeves is passive aggressiveness. Why do people feel the need to half- assed ask for things or ask for the opposite of what they want in hopes that you will read their mind? Maybe it just a southern thing...an old white people southern thing. They think they are being polite by not asking for what they want... Or they want to test the politeness of the other person by not directly making their request. If you read their mind, yay...you're officially a nice person! It's also a behavior more common in women. Why? Because secretly we are all afraid to ask for what we want out of life for fear of offending a man or stepping out of our place?

Example A:

woman: "Oh. I'm so thirsty. I wish I had something to drink"
man: " uh......would you like me to get you a glass of water?"
woman: "oh, well...sure!"

I like to mess with with these people and not respond to their passive aggressive behaviors. In doing this I feel great joy. I say nothing because I choose to only respond to direct requests for things. By responding to passive aggressiveness we are merely reinforcing this odious behavior in people.

Example B:

Teacher: "Oh...I'm so busy right now. I can't even get a minute to go to the bathroom" (teacher is hoping that I will offer to watch her class while she goes to the bathroom, which I would gladly do if she would just go right out and asked me)
Me: "Man, that is too bad. See ya!"

Just try it sometime. It feels great to not buy into the social grossness.

If you want something, just ask!

back karma

I don't know if it was me in yoga class the other night thinking "Wow, I've never been injured doing my practice!", or if it was me making fun of the man in the school safety video Slips, Trips and Falls shouting "Ow! I hurt my back!". But, I did. I hurt my back this morning, somehow, doing yoga. Ouch. I'm sorry school safety video and I'm sorry karmic gods who decide these things. Please make me better.


Now, how many Advil is too many?

a love riddle

What do you get when you travel back in time exactly 5 years from today and cross a rainy day with 7-10 pints of yuengling, good conversation and two "friends"?

I miss the 90's

I listened to Pearl Jam in the car on the way to work today. It was awesome! It made me totally miss the 90's. Does everyone think that the decade in which they were a teenager was the best?

Things I miss from the 90's:

-Grunge Rock (RIP Kurt)
-The Limited Too
-Old school REAL gangsta rap
-My Little Pony
-Care Bears
-Rainbow Bright
-REAL cartoons
-Great bad movies like Pretty Woman, Hocus Pocus, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, Quick Change and Sister Act (1 and 2)
- Nintendo (just regular old Nintendo)
-Nickelodeon shows (the good ones)
- Gak and Floam
-fashion (mmm...maybe not so much)
-Beverly Hills, 90210
-Saved by the Bell
-roller skating
-New Kids on the Block
-Kids Incorporated
-birthday parties with party favor bags
-sleepovers
-the best years of SNL (RIP Chris Farley)
-being little
-the notion that I can go anywhere and be anything

uh...

I'm supposed to go here in a few weeks. I'm not exactly sure what its going to be like. I'm nervous.

There was a hurricane which caused crazy flooding, mudslides, power outages, and this sink hole! Thousands of people have been affected. Houses have been lost, families displaced, and some people have gone missing or been killed.

Two days layer, a volcanic eruption occured. Volcanic ash and rocks were raining down from the sky. The airport is currently closed and Guatemala has declared a state of calamity.

I think I'll retire to my room a little early this evening

On Saturday, Jason and I traveled an hour down the road to Lexington to visit his parents for his mom's birthday. They live at High Rock Lake in a freshly remodeled house...on the lake! They are retired and proceed to live the dream via pontoon boat rides, wine on the porch, big screen TVs, and relaxing in the hammock.

As I lay on the hammock, relaxing, I got to thinking about retirement...how awesome it is, but also how sad it is. It's amazing that one can work for the state for 30 years and then continue to receive their paycheck although they are not working, and rather they are relaxing at the lake house. It's also sad though that one might do a job that they dislike with their only hope being retirement 30 years down the road. I want to retire and relax. But, I don't want to do a job just for the sake of retirement opportunities. What a waste of 30 years!
Jason likes to quote his old basketball coach, who likes to quote someone as saying something about the journey being more important than the destination. Yes, that's a common idea to posit. The journey (life) is more important than the destination (retirement). I agree. I just wonder if I'll be singing the same tune when I'm 50.