11/10-11?
Right now I am trying to decide what to do about going to the market in Chichicastenango......it turns out that at least the place I went to does not provide a tour of the Lake Atitlan area. I guess they think it's too simple. But I know my difficulty with the numbers (5, 15 and 50 all sound the same to me) and I could easily get lost, as I have here several times until I now get the layout of the town.....I could easily miss my boat across that huge lake.....or arrive at the time I thought only to be wrong, etc. SOO if that happens is it a big deal? maybe not. Maybe.
So.....I asked my maestra if she wanted to go (she looks like middle-aged lady to me but is younger than my oldest daughter) because she said she loves the county and her husband never wants to go.......so she‘s thinking about it, but I was not clear if I was paying for her and maybe her kid, or what. And she has to ask her husband. So we‘ll see. It‘s not the weekend yet. Two other interesting things, (besides my trip to the local¨"supermercado". What an incredible scene THAT was! )
One was an English-speaking masseuse who came into the school today advertising her wares, and she and I got talking. She is 68 and has been living in Antigua for 13 years. She told me "oh there is this great group of us, we play cards and go to movies, and blahblah...you´d fit right in; most of us work in various projects." Well playing cards is not my cup of tea, but I took her address and will go see what sort of digs she lives in on $450 a month. TOTAL (!)
The other is trying to nail down a trip to ChiChi this weekend (Lk. Atitlan area.) Mi maestra got me to go to every other student-teacher combo in the school "room" to ask in Spanish if they were interested in going as a group to ChiChi and Panajachel, which was a good exercise but netted noone. Then my teacher said that for $200 I could take a trip to Rio Dulce with her husband´s tour agency, up the Rio to stop and several interesting places and then to Livingston, the home of the Garifuna people - descendents of the African slaves of several centuries ago. I´ve been dying to go there, but would like to spend more than an afternoon, especially to take in the music. And I´ve been focussed on the Atitlan area (one of the most beautiful in the world, I hear) and don´t change horses easily. So I kindof held out, and then she told me that she and her husband and children will go with me (my suggestion, originally) if I pay the transport costs and her room. So maybe $140 including my room and all my food, for 2 days. Well the masseuse woman told me that was crazy, I could go there myself for half the cost, no problem.....well no she didn´t want to guide me and she couldn´t think of a friend who might.............so I told the teacher yes. She is nice and fun, and we´re pretty simpatico (tho I think she will be more conservative w- her family in tow,) this means a private van whom I can ask to slow down a little if I´m nervous, or want to take photos, instead of a van w- 6-8 strangers, and I like her alot and originally suggested her going w- me. So I get to go.
So now it´s time to join my housemates and house'mother for our first dinner out. Our housemother is a great cook of interesting things: like large squash flowers fried in batter, and the best black beans in the world, and steamed eggs w- salsa, and a great soup of some local greens I haven't seen before........and so on. But we've decide to take her out for Thai food. Cooked by local Guatemalans; it's actually quite good.
The other interesting information from my teacher is that a two-room apartment with bathroom is about $400, including all utilities, in Antigua itself. If I'm right about my social security income, that would leave me money for food, occ'l trips to Tikal or wherever (there are Mayan ruins from several different time periods, here), and save a little for twice-yearly trips to the US. Like Xmas and Easter or something. If I lived 20 mins walking distance outside of town it would be somewhat less, though that area looks a little more “sketchy“ in terms of personal safety.
AND she knows LOTS of women living here in town from the US, she says ! (I'm not seing LOTS of Gringos on the street and those I see look like students walking with their teachers, 1:1, or tourists with cameras, como yo.) Most are retired and volunteer with some project, she says. Doctors without Borders is here as is the Peace Corps. Holey Moley.
11/11 Friday
So I´m set to go to Chichi, Panajachel, etc. tomorrow morning at 7. TODAY, I met with her to pay the $125 to the agency who owns the shuttle that I am renting ¨privately¨, to be driven by her husband, who works for the agency. So here I am carrying my purse STUFFED with money (7.5 to the dollar)(with money to spend too,) and she takes me for a tour past the literal ¨watering hole¨ (a lovely arch and large fishpond sort of thing set in a grassy area) where she tells me the indigenes (who of course live OUTSIDE the town) wash their clothes and their hair and bodies (con ropa, of course) during their week in town. And then to the Iglesia San Francisco, which is magnificent and BEAUTIFUL. The feeling inside that series of huge arched domes - with statues of the saints in gold, and many many candles, and people kneeling and praying - is SO strong I was in tears. My horoscope for Guatemala is like a stronger version of my natal horoscope, and one of the things emphasized is my emotionality.) But a beautiful beautiful place where a local saint is buried, with people on their knees around his bier, candles, etc. There is something profound about witnessing real emotion, of any kind........very present in these praying people, as opposed, perhaps, to the people in my churches, growing up. And then to the agency where everyone is joking in Spanish and I understand next to nothing. But get a regular receipt for my payment. .And then we go for coffee and pastry. And I get a glimpse of what I´m in for, this weekend. She regards this as fun for both of us, but mostly a big long endless lesson. Her idea of our travel-time is that we will work on verb conjugations. And I´m exhausted from the week. Moreover, I will want to see everything I pass, so I will have to limit the lesson in verbs, to some extent. BUT that´s what I´m here for, I should remember; not just to ooh and aah at this lovely town, and think about the socioeconomic situation and fantasize about living here. :-)
Today she told me so many things that made me want to just come work here immediately. But of course I have to get much much better in Spanish. One good-bad thing about the socio-economic situation, I learned today, is that all working people get ¨free¨ medical benefits - total - for which they pay in 6% of their pay....which also goes to soc. security. But of course the 48% ¨non-working¨ people (tho they all work their butts off, pushing heavy things around town, carrying things, selling things, etc etc.) get NADA. No unemployment benefits, no welfare. No healthcare, I don´t think, although there is some clinic of every kind on every block, so I´ll have to ask about that.
So....here I go, off for the whole weekend. I expect this will be a huge candystore for the eyes. And who knows what else. We should pass through or near the place where the huge mudslide occurred from Huricane Stan, just a month ago.
13 Sunday
This area continues to be amazing. The road to Panajachel is up and down and left and right, and made dangerous by the wild'ly careening chicken busses, but not bad....and not worth my having worried about it. Mainly no abrupt drop-offs, which terrify me. The lake is 5 x as big as Clear Lake in California...or 3 x.....huge and beautiful, dominated by a huge volcano. We went down to "Pana.", next to the lake. The usual 400 vendors, and even a gringa woman on a bicycle who has made her living there for 21 years, baking and selling healthy bread and cookies! We took a large "public boat" across the bay - a 1 hr trip that allowed us to see the huge waterfall above Pana. and all the little pueblos around the lake, where people farm on the sides of cliffs as steep as down at Big Sur in Calif. or the hillsides I saw in Jamaica. We were met in Santiago Atitlan, across the bay, by muchas children begging (first time I'd seen that - hard to turn down a 3 or 4 y.o. with dirty hair) and selling things, and adults, too, and then my teacher's husband (just he and her 15 yr old came with us) got us a tuktuk driven by a kid under 13 w- his friend - and the 6 of us (in this tiny thing) went buzzing off up the steep hills and concrete streets to see a beautiful church and then a tiny hole in the wall where a bruja was performing a healing ceremony, the room dark except for candles, dominated by the statue of Maximon, a local saint, and filled with herb smoke. Very lovely, really...deep feeling. I was told to pay 2 quetzals if I wanted to take a photo, which I did.
Right now I am trying to decide what to do about going to the market in Chichicastenango......it turns out that at least the place I went to does not provide a tour of the Lake Atitlan area. I guess they think it's too simple. But I know my difficulty with the numbers (5, 15 and 50 all sound the same to me) and I could easily get lost, as I have here several times until I now get the layout of the town.....I could easily miss my boat across that huge lake.....or arrive at the time I thought only to be wrong, etc. SOO if that happens is it a big deal? maybe not. Maybe.
So.....I asked my maestra if she wanted to go (she looks like middle-aged lady to me but is younger than my oldest daughter) because she said she loves the county and her husband never wants to go.......so she‘s thinking about it, but I was not clear if I was paying for her and maybe her kid, or what. And she has to ask her husband. So we‘ll see. It‘s not the weekend yet. Two other interesting things, (besides my trip to the local¨"supermercado". What an incredible scene THAT was! )
One was an English-speaking masseuse who came into the school today advertising her wares, and she and I got talking. She is 68 and has been living in Antigua for 13 years. She told me "oh there is this great group of us, we play cards and go to movies, and blahblah...you´d fit right in; most of us work in various projects." Well playing cards is not my cup of tea, but I took her address and will go see what sort of digs she lives in on $450 a month. TOTAL (!)
The other is trying to nail down a trip to ChiChi this weekend (Lk. Atitlan area.) Mi maestra got me to go to every other student-teacher combo in the school "room" to ask in Spanish if they were interested in going as a group to ChiChi and Panajachel, which was a good exercise but netted noone. Then my teacher said that for $200 I could take a trip to Rio Dulce with her husband´s tour agency, up the Rio to stop and several interesting places and then to Livingston, the home of the Garifuna people - descendents of the African slaves of several centuries ago. I´ve been dying to go there, but would like to spend more than an afternoon, especially to take in the music. And I´ve been focussed on the Atitlan area (one of the most beautiful in the world, I hear) and don´t change horses easily. So I kindof held out, and then she told me that she and her husband and children will go with me (my suggestion, originally) if I pay the transport costs and her room. So maybe $140 including my room and all my food, for 2 days. Well the masseuse woman told me that was crazy, I could go there myself for half the cost, no problem.....well no she didn´t want to guide me and she couldn´t think of a friend who might.............so I told the teacher yes. She is nice and fun, and we´re pretty simpatico (tho I think she will be more conservative w- her family in tow,) this means a private van whom I can ask to slow down a little if I´m nervous, or want to take photos, instead of a van w- 6-8 strangers, and I like her alot and originally suggested her going w- me. So I get to go.
So now it´s time to join my housemates and house'mother for our first dinner out. Our housemother is a great cook of interesting things: like large squash flowers fried in batter, and the best black beans in the world, and steamed eggs w- salsa, and a great soup of some local greens I haven't seen before........and so on. But we've decide to take her out for Thai food. Cooked by local Guatemalans; it's actually quite good.
The other interesting information from my teacher is that a two-room apartment with bathroom is about $400, including all utilities, in Antigua itself. If I'm right about my social security income, that would leave me money for food, occ'l trips to Tikal or wherever (there are Mayan ruins from several different time periods, here), and save a little for twice-yearly trips to the US. Like Xmas and Easter or something. If I lived 20 mins walking distance outside of town it would be somewhat less, though that area looks a little more “sketchy“ in terms of personal safety.
AND she knows LOTS of women living here in town from the US, she says ! (I'm not seing LOTS of Gringos on the street and those I see look like students walking with their teachers, 1:1, or tourists with cameras, como yo.) Most are retired and volunteer with some project, she says. Doctors without Borders is here as is the Peace Corps. Holey Moley.
11/11 Friday
So I´m set to go to Chichi, Panajachel, etc. tomorrow morning at 7. TODAY, I met with her to pay the $125 to the agency who owns the shuttle that I am renting ¨privately¨, to be driven by her husband, who works for the agency. So here I am carrying my purse STUFFED with money (7.5 to the dollar)(with money to spend too,) and she takes me for a tour past the literal ¨watering hole¨ (a lovely arch and large fishpond sort of thing set in a grassy area) where she tells me the indigenes (who of course live OUTSIDE the town) wash their clothes and their hair and bodies (con ropa, of course) during their week in town. And then to the Iglesia San Francisco, which is magnificent and BEAUTIFUL. The feeling inside that series of huge arched domes - with statues of the saints in gold, and many many candles, and people kneeling and praying - is SO strong I was in tears. My horoscope for Guatemala is like a stronger version of my natal horoscope, and one of the things emphasized is my emotionality.) But a beautiful beautiful place where a local saint is buried, with people on their knees around his bier, candles, etc. There is something profound about witnessing real emotion, of any kind........very present in these praying people, as opposed, perhaps, to the people in my churches, growing up. And then to the agency where everyone is joking in Spanish and I understand next to nothing. But get a regular receipt for my payment. .And then we go for coffee and pastry. And I get a glimpse of what I´m in for, this weekend. She regards this as fun for both of us, but mostly a big long endless lesson. Her idea of our travel-time is that we will work on verb conjugations. And I´m exhausted from the week. Moreover, I will want to see everything I pass, so I will have to limit the lesson in verbs, to some extent. BUT that´s what I´m here for, I should remember; not just to ooh and aah at this lovely town, and think about the socioeconomic situation and fantasize about living here. :-)
Today she told me so many things that made me want to just come work here immediately. But of course I have to get much much better in Spanish. One good-bad thing about the socio-economic situation, I learned today, is that all working people get ¨free¨ medical benefits - total - for which they pay in 6% of their pay....which also goes to soc. security. But of course the 48% ¨non-working¨ people (tho they all work their butts off, pushing heavy things around town, carrying things, selling things, etc etc.) get NADA. No unemployment benefits, no welfare. No healthcare, I don´t think, although there is some clinic of every kind on every block, so I´ll have to ask about that.
So....here I go, off for the whole weekend. I expect this will be a huge candystore for the eyes. And who knows what else. We should pass through or near the place where the huge mudslide occurred from Huricane Stan, just a month ago.
13 Sunday
This area continues to be amazing. The road to Panajachel is up and down and left and right, and made dangerous by the wild'ly careening chicken busses, but not bad....and not worth my having worried about it. Mainly no abrupt drop-offs, which terrify me. The lake is 5 x as big as Clear Lake in California...or 3 x.....huge and beautiful, dominated by a huge volcano. We went down to "Pana.", next to the lake. The usual 400 vendors, and even a gringa woman on a bicycle who has made her living there for 21 years, baking and selling healthy bread and cookies! We took a large "public boat" across the bay - a 1 hr trip that allowed us to see the huge waterfall above Pana. and all the little pueblos around the lake, where people farm on the sides of cliffs as steep as down at Big Sur in Calif. or the hillsides I saw in Jamaica. We were met in Santiago Atitlan, across the bay, by muchas children begging (first time I'd seen that - hard to turn down a 3 or 4 y.o. with dirty hair) and selling things, and adults, too, and then my teacher's husband (just he and her 15 yr old came with us) got us a tuktuk driven by a kid under 13 w- his friend - and the 6 of us (in this tiny thing) went buzzing off up the steep hills and concrete streets to see a beautiful church and then a tiny hole in the wall where a bruja was performing a healing ceremony, the room dark except for candles, dominated by the statue of Maximon, a local saint, and filled with herb smoke. Very lovely, really...deep feeling. I was told to pay 2 quetzals if I wanted to take a photo, which I did.
(For contrast: "These boots are made for walking" is playing here in the internet place where I'm writing this.)
We walked around a bit and I bought a huipil typical of this region - purples squares on white with flowers and birds embroidered in them. Then back to Pana. on the boat, which was interesting for several groups of German and English people, some of whom lived around there (taking friends on tours as one does,) and a group of children of 7 or less who were trying....no not trying, insisting on.........selling us things. One girl took the wrap off her hair....she twists several long woven colorful "strings" around her ponytail and then wraps it around her head, tucking it in. She wanted to do it to my hair, which would have been fun, but I declined. Then then the teacher and daughter and I walked around looking at all the vendors, and looking for a blouse for my houselady's 13 y.o. niece, who stays w- her in the summer and works her butt off, and is very shy. It's her birthday Thursday. And like that....the streets all concrete and hilly....every day a workout but in this town more. They bought roasted corn off a vendor. Then they went to "rest" while I watched tv in my motel room (did I say fairly nice for $15?) which has CNN and like that. Then to dinner at 8, as mentioned, where I couldn't recognize anything on the menu - this is not Mexican food - and ended up with something like fried chicken and chips, unintentionally. And then bed and up at 6:30 and off another windey road to Chichicastenango which I read in the the guide book has it's big market day on Sundays. Chichi is at 6000 ft so there are pines all along the road and if the ridge weren't so narrow, so that the mountain drops away on both sides of the road (but with a margin that was comfortable for me in all places,) it looked a lot like the area around my home...tho the trees not as old/big. (The flatter, lower-lying area once outside of Antigua, which stretches for miles, looks a lot like Sonoma, California, if you took away the trash.) This whole area near Pana. and Chichi was of course that which experienced all the landslides during Hurricane Stan.........and they were not concentrated in one town (where 600 died) as I thought, but everywhere. She explained that the place had been deforested, in part (tho I didn't see any clearcutting or anything) and also because of the rain year-round the soil is so saturated that all it takes is MORE rain for the whole hillside to come down. Which is what it did everywhere. The road had washed away in several places, so that we had to take detours - tho the govt did an excellent job of clearning things pretty quickly, looked like. Passed one school and another whole small town which had been 4 feet in mud, and still showed the marks everywhere; many rivers just came down pell mell so hard that the sides of the rivers washed away and got dumped in the first flat place it found. I saw several places where houses were cu! t in half or dangling on the edge of a cutaway, etc. But in general things cleared up and no signs of anything "emotional" that I could see (like crosses, or something.)
So into Chichi...a pretty good sized town perched on top of the ridge at 6000, all the streets windey, and narrow. Parked and found a place for breakfast, upstairs, overlooking one of the market streets. Nice photo "ops". Then thru the narrow market aisles, single file, being pushed and shoved in many places (so that I blantantly just hung onto my purse in front of me, since I'd heard so many stories)....by old ladies half my size w- an elbow in my back, etc etc. But every stall just filled with things to make my eyes bleed w- pleasure. Gorgeous and more and more gorgeous. An old man on foot caught me up at one point and talked me into a gorgeous silver and coral necklace with old Guate. coins and milagros (probably replicated)...I talked him down to 250 quetzals (about $30) He took off with my 3rd 100 Q, while maestra and I watched, stunned, but when he returned with my change, I thrust 20Q at him for his honesty.
We walked around a bit and I bought a huipil typical of this region - purples squares on white with flowers and birds embroidered in them. Then back to Pana. on the boat, which was interesting for several groups of German and English people, some of whom lived around there (taking friends on tours as one does,) and a group of children of 7 or less who were trying....no not trying, insisting on.........selling us things. One girl took the wrap off her hair....she twists several long woven colorful "strings" around her ponytail and then wraps it around her head, tucking it in. She wanted to do it to my hair, which would have been fun, but I declined. Then then the teacher and daughter and I walked around looking at all the vendors, and looking for a blouse for my houselady's 13 y.o. niece, who stays w- her in the summer and works her butt off, and is very shy. It's her birthday Thursday. And like that....the streets all concrete and hilly....every day a workout but in this town more. They bought roasted corn off a vendor. Then they went to "rest" while I watched tv in my motel room (did I say fairly nice for $15?) which has CNN and like that. Then to dinner at 8, as mentioned, where I couldn't recognize anything on the menu - this is not Mexican food - and ended up with something like fried chicken and chips, unintentionally. And then bed and up at 6:30 and off another windey road to Chichicastenango which I read in the the guide book has it's big market day on Sundays. Chichi is at 6000 ft so there are pines all along the road and if the ridge weren't so narrow, so that the mountain drops away on both sides of the road (but with a margin that was comfortable for me in all places,) it looked a lot like the area around my home...tho the trees not as old/big. (The flatter, lower-lying area once outside of Antigua, which stretches for miles, looks a lot like Sonoma, California, if you took away the trash.) This whole area near Pana. and Chichi was of course that which experienced all the landslides during Hurricane Stan.........and they were not concentrated in one town (where 600 died) as I thought, but everywhere. She explained that the place had been deforested, in part (tho I didn't see any clearcutting or anything) and also because of the rain year-round the soil is so saturated that all it takes is MORE rain for the whole hillside to come down. Which is what it did everywhere. The road had washed away in several places, so that we had to take detours - tho the govt did an excellent job of clearning things pretty quickly, looked like. Passed one school and another whole small town which had been 4 feet in mud, and still showed the marks everywhere; many rivers just came down pell mell so hard that the sides of the rivers washed away and got dumped in the first flat place it found. I saw several places where houses were cu! t in half or dangling on the edge of a cutaway, etc. But in general things cleared up and no signs of anything "emotional" that I could see (like crosses, or something.)
So into Chichi...a pretty good sized town perched on top of the ridge at 6000, all the streets windey, and narrow. Parked and found a place for breakfast, upstairs, overlooking one of the market streets. Nice photo "ops". Then thru the narrow market aisles, single file, being pushed and shoved in many places (so that I blantantly just hung onto my purse in front of me, since I'd heard so many stories)....by old ladies half my size w- an elbow in my back, etc etc. But every stall just filled with things to make my eyes bleed w- pleasure. Gorgeous and more and more gorgeous. An old man on foot caught me up at one point and talked me into a gorgeous silver and coral necklace with old Guate. coins and milagros (probably replicated)...I talked him down to 250 quetzals (about $30) He took off with my 3rd 100 Q, while maestra and I watched, stunned, but when he returned with my change, I thrust 20Q at him for his honesty.
So I tend to bargain, the best I can. I hate to....bent old man with seamed face....but I've been told they expect it and offer 1/3 more than what they expect to get. Then off to see another incredible church. [see photo at top] Big steep steps up to this incredible ancient facade, and hundreds of gorgeously-"robed" women and men (this is an area where men wear multicolored pants and shirts, instead of US clothing, like the rest of Guate) and children are all over the steps. And at the top women are swinging these braziers, giving off tons of smoke. And then inside to the church, where a priest is intoning in Spanish, and people are singing, and others lighting candles and placing them in front of their favorite saint. Wonderful place (mi maestra is Catholic, so of course kneels and genuflects.) And then outside some sort of monk'ly types in wonderful red pointed dangly wrapped headdresses were marching around in circles, with all these tourists! snapping photos while they did their thing, carrying huge crosses.
And then thru the stalls some more, still looking for the cheaper kind of huipile from that area that I love, because I wasn't willing to pay $60 or more for the ones I really love. Only to realize that I'd spent almost all of my cash and had deliberately not brought a card w- me. So back to the little old van in which we were travelling. The chicken busses are the dangerous thing around here.
And then they told me to my surprise that there was a ruin nearby. I didn't know there were any in these parts (most over by El Salv. and on the Yucatan peninsula, like Tikal.) It was free to Guatemaltecos and 25 Q for me. This was a city on top of a hill at one time. Mi maestra tells me these are post-Classical ruins, and they weren't alot to see....mostly the block bases of the buildings that were there, but it's always wonderful to "see" an ancient city laid out in front of you and imagine the life. According to her the Mayan civilization self-destructed due to internal wars and those that fled from Tikal and other Classical sites came up here and the cities had many fortifications to protect them from wars with other groups.
We walked thru the ruins and came on another brujo and bruja performing healing rites on some indigenes, with fires and smoke and herbs. Very moving to watch the solemnity of the ritual, and even this Catholic woman is very respectful.
And then loopdeloopdeloop down the mountains, and as it turned out, no verb conjugations, tho she won't let me speak in English, which is very frustrating when you're all excited about what you're seeing, or wanting to convey some philosophic or emotional or spiritual point.
An odd thing, not being able to speak the language at all well. I get by reasonably well, even in the banco, trying to change my travelers checks, where noone speaks English. My house mother, tho, is not terribly tolerant of me, and while my housemates are off releasing turtles, I notice she set my lunch out where I could watch tv with the kids, and didn't actually eat breakfast w- me, tho she sat there quietly, for the most part. Ah well. Can't please them all.
I certainly don't do well trying to get some special something at meals.....my over-easy eggs this morning, even w-teacher's help, became scrambled, there were no potatoes available except for french fries, and pan tostada turned out to be French toast! Ah que sorpresa!
But now I'm "home" again, at the homestay, and half my stay here is over. Or half remains!
Off for my Sunday dinner, not supplied by the housemother.....at my favorite Thai restaurant. And then book it home before dark. My house is on the edge of town and a few parts of my street are not where I am by choice after dark especially the long un-lit stretch next to the coffee finca, where the remnants of various homeless stays lie among the bushes.
11/15 Tuesday
Toured a local orphanage yesterday and learned that there could be plenty of work for me there (training teachers and counseling) and that they're dying to have someone.
oops. When fantasy slides into reality.
So now I'm thinking what I would have to give up if I lived here (besides job, money, home, family, friends): HOT showers (these shower-head heaters are very tepid,) organic food (except for vegetales del campo,) a real sense of security (a little timid about going to the big City to buy anything, like a juicer, or anything...)(no going out alone after 9 pm.)
But now I'm "home" again, at the homestay, and half my stay here is over. Or half remains!
Off for my Sunday dinner, not supplied by the housemother.....at my favorite Thai restaurant. And then book it home before dark. My house is on the edge of town and a few parts of my street are not where I am by choice after dark especially the long un-lit stretch next to the coffee finca, where the remnants of various homeless stays lie among the bushes.
11/15 Tuesday
Toured a local orphanage yesterday and learned that there could be plenty of work for me there (training teachers and counseling) and that they're dying to have someone.
oops. When fantasy slides into reality.
So now I'm thinking what I would have to give up if I lived here (besides job, money, home, family, friends): HOT showers (these shower-head heaters are very tepid,) organic food (except for vegetales del campo,) a real sense of security (a little timid about going to the big City to buy anything, like a juicer, or anything...)(no going out alone after 9 pm.)
I don't think I mentioned that all the houses and restaurants are open to the air. They have some fantasy that it is warm here (I'm pretty cool in the evening in my daytime clothes and at night without that extra blanket, which I did get.) So at the house I stay in, for instance, one goes through the outside entrance, into a concrete foyer with wire guards, through my housemother's gate into a concrete patio and then through an inner gate into the house. But this part of the house is completely open except for the (concrete) fence which separates it from the patio. This patio area is tiled; it is where the children play, eat, watch tv, etc. The dining room, kitchen and two bedrooms are enclosed and have doors, but you go thru this tiled "living room" and up the stairs and the area upstairs is also open to the air and partly to the sky. From that there is a hallway and three bedrooms and a tiny bathroom off of this hallway, which of course are enclosed.
And no houses have heaters! although someone told me that a few have woodstoves. You see men and women on the outskirts of town carrying huge bundles of branches on little folded fabric things on their heads. When I said that looked really hard, mi maestra said they are used to it, but another maestra said that her mother used to do that and all her cervical vertebrae are damaged.
But I've gone afield. No rice milk. No millet that I've found. Pecans sold in bags on the streetcorners but not walnuts. The chicken here CAN be obtained with slightly less chemicals, but no organic chicken unless you go - to the campo. And then I know how those are....stringy and scrawny, unless they're raised in cages.
So.......eso es interessante!
Would I be willing to give up these things??
11/15 Tuesday? Yesterday's " welcome" at the orphanage was a boost in my feeling, but how to MOVE here?? Too weird. What would it cost to mail myself something? Is it way too expensive to have Anna send me rice milk, vitamins I can't get here, etc.? My maestra walked me to two tiendas which sell "American" food....some of it familiar, but looked more like European. There is also a "natural food" store which I'm going to go investigate after lunch. But the other had brown rice in tiny packets (god knows the price) and walnuts.....and lots of SOY milk, which I can't eat. What I probably would do, by the bye, if this were to pass, is quit my job at the end of the contract in June - hopefully having trained my replacement, then come here for 1-2 months, looking for a place, and deciding at that point. If I found the darlingest place, with a room on the second floor and maybe a little space for a dog (nuts idea, but actually for some protection) or a teensy garden, just on the edge of town but where it feels safe and nice.....well that would certainly be a deciding factor. It helps to think of it as 2-3 years, then home.
11/15 Tuesday? Yesterday's " welcome" at the orphanage was a boost in my feeling, but how to MOVE here?? Too weird. What would it cost to mail myself something? Is it way too expensive to have Anna send me rice milk, vitamins I can't get here, etc.? My maestra walked me to two tiendas which sell "American" food....some of it familiar, but looked more like European. There is also a "natural food" store which I'm going to go investigate after lunch. But the other had brown rice in tiny packets (god knows the price) and walnuts.....and lots of SOY milk, which I can't eat. What I probably would do, by the bye, if this were to pass, is quit my job at the end of the contract in June - hopefully having trained my replacement, then come here for 1-2 months, looking for a place, and deciding at that point. If I found the darlingest place, with a room on the second floor and maybe a little space for a dog (nuts idea, but actually for some protection) or a teensy garden, just on the edge of town but where it feels safe and nice.....well that would certainly be a deciding factor. It helps to think of it as 2-3 years, then home.
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