Setteled in Xela

Hello Everyone!

Sorry for the recent shortage of communicaton. I´m a lot busier here than I expecdted. In the mornings I´mdoing volunteer work in health, in the evenings I´m taking classes, going on walks, or taking dance lessons and on the weekends I´m traveling, climbing volcanoes or going to futbol (soccer) games. It´s pretty hectic, but there is time to rest and, of course, I´m a person who likes to be busy, so I like having lots to do.

I came down to Xela a week before 3 other people from Rice on my trip. During this week I was helping the doctor in her tiny clinic (think a 12 foot by 12 foot box). It was extremely interesting listening to her consultations and getting to interact with patients. I learned how to take blood pressure and weigh kids. The medical Spanish is a bit difficult, but I think I´m catching on. Mostly, however, I was listening, passing the doctor medicine and holding babies while mothers were getting checked out. However, the realitty was, since I had no medical training, I couldn´t really help to the level I would have liked in the clinic.

When my 3 other companions got there, there was absolutely no space in the clinic. We were definately more a help than a hinderance and I think some of the patients who walked into the waiting room of the clinic, whiih is the same thing as the haning out area of the spanish school, they were a bit nervous. So we´ve moved to something that I enjoy much more - public health and hygene education. Pretty much every other day we´re now going to a school for Pre-K to 6th grade to do some health leacture or other. The first day we taught them how to brush their teeth - ´every time, for one minute - 20 on the top, 20 on the bottom and ten on teh sides. and don´t forget your toung!´ The second time we had a day to prepair for a lesson on about 8 different areas of health - brushing and washing hair (piojos, or lice, are a big problem here) how to wash hands, how and why to clean under nails, how and why to wash feet. With time to prepair, I decided that it would be better to teach through skits and games than through lectures, at least for the younger grades. One of my companions, Stacy, and I wrote two skits and questions for ´simon says´and ´hot potato´to play after each skit, to make sure the kids really got the message. The skits were fairly interactive; after certian actions (for example, a girl eating without washing her hands first) we would ask teh kids what was wrong and go through how to change the skit so that the characters were healthier. I´m very proud of the skits and games, and the method is one that I´ve been learning a lot about through BioE courses. Skits, in general, tend to have a great sucuess in the global south because you can discuss taboo subjects without being seen to be insensitive. They´re also great because they´re interesting and keep kids attention better than just standing and lecturing.

I really enjoy teaching at teh school. The kids are adorable and, because they´re from the outskirts of town, you get the feeling that tehy haven´t seen very many foreigners. B ecause of this, they´re always xcrowding around me, asking questions or to play games. We get to the school at about 8:30 and teach for an hor and a half, broken into three sets of 30 minutes. At 10 the kids have a 30 minute break, sort of like recess, where they just run around wildly or talk to us or eat snacks. On Friday, we organized a game of duck-duck-goose with them, and we got a good 40 kids playing with us. It was very fun.

Like any school, it seems as though there ae good teachers and not so good teachers. There are far too many students for teh teachers, and I think this has them a bit burned out. Also, the school´s not in the best shape every. While it´s perfictly useable there are parts (especially the bathroom) that could use work.

In the afternoons, three times a week, I have three hourse of one-on-one Spanish lessons. They´re a marathon and sometimes quite difficult to get through but, since I haven´t studied Spanish ihn over a year, I think they´re doing a good job. We´re doing a general review of pretty much everything, so it´s comming back to be, if a little bit slowly.

I had origionally wanted to speek only in Spanish while down here, but that´s become a bit difficult. I´ve made some friends at my school fro Germany and Holland (and of course the US) and they´re not very good at Spanish yet. However, they all speak almost impecible English. It´s interesting that, in a Spanish speaking country, you would have two common languages - Spanish and English - but that´s how it is with us foreigners at least.

I´ve decied to take salsa classes because it´s an extremely fun dance. I´m taking classes at my school, but some of the discotecas (clubs) here also offer free salsa lessons in an effort to draw people to the clubs on off nights . So I´m dancing about 3 nights a week and practicing my lessons in the discotecas on the weekends. On Friday I had the most incredible dance partner - a regatton singer slash artist from Xela - who kept me constantly spinning. It was wonderful.

I´m living with a family, whcih I think is the only wat to really try to learn a language. My ´parents´are in their mid thirties and very cool- it was my ´mom´who sugguested that we go out to teh salsa club on Friday. I have twho ´siblings´and 18 year old sister who´s studying medicine at a local university and a 15 year old brother who´s a typicle 15 year old guy. My sister studies pertty much every day, all day, and I´m awed by her dedication. My brothe loves to make things and recently participated in an egg-drop, in which you have to make a structure out of only tooth picks to stop an egg from breaking when falling from 10 meters or something like that. There are also two other srtudents - one in college and one in high school - who live in teh house. Because Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala, it´s very common for familes to send their kids here to study and have them stay with a family. There´s also another student from my spanish school staying here. So that makes 6 students and two adults. It´s a pretty fun environment.

I´ve been trying to pack in as much as possibe into my weekends and free afternoons. Luckily for me, the school has a bunch of activities geared at getting students outside of Xela and into the countryside or other cities. This week we visited Salcaja which is a fabric making villiage. We visited the people who dye the thread and those who weave it. It´s a fascinating, and very long, process. We also visited a factory of sorts for a sangria-like alcohol that is only made around Xela and that is illegal to export, so it´s a very local delicacy. We also visited a beautiful little church, the oldest in all of Central America, that was decorated from the Assension (May 3) and that was so quaint it made you want to give it a big hug.

Saturday we visited Momostenango (try to say that three times fast) where there are a family of local artisans that have a connection with the school. They let us into their home, on the edge of a cliff, and told us about their lifestyle, their work and their language (Quiche, a Mayan language. There are about 23 different Mayan languages within Guatemala). It was very beautiful. We them went to visit the market and the church - staples of a Guatemalan town and usually very close to each other. The most interesting part of the town, however, were these strange sand and rock mounds which are natural results of years and years of rain. My guide book describes them as something out of Strar Trek, and it´s exactly correct.

Sunday I woke up at five in teh morning to climb a volcano that, at its mouth, has a lake. The lake is a sacred Mayan worship site and the remnants of rituals, flowers and candles, could be seen all around the lake. From this inactive volcano, we could hear the erruptions of Santiaguito, a very active volcano, going off every thirty minutes or so. After we climbed down and came back to Xela, by means of 12 people in the back of a pick-up truck, three of my friends and I made the trip to some absolutely beautiful hot springs about 45 minutes outside of town. The hot springs were covered with a surreal fog and made the whole experience extremely magical. Some other people must have thought so as well because there were two 20 somethings who didn´t stop making out the entire time they were in the hotsprings. We came back to the city after soaking for about two hours and proceded to eat the most delicious and inexpensive street food ever (papousas, chicharones, maiz, an orcjeta-like drink). There´s a great big area next to teh Parque Centeral where food vendors set up shop every night. Going there is like going out to tapas because you can try a little of everything, it´s really quite fun.

And now I´m off to start another week.

Love you all, and can´t wait to see those of you that I´ll have a chance to see,

Julia

Guatemala Day 2

Today is my first full day in Xela. After spending the nght in a pretty awesome hostel and meeting a bunch of hipie backackers (from Argentina to Belgum) I left and met my host family. They're very nice - a 35 year old mother (who, as one might expect is super hip) a high-school aged boy, Dennis, and an eighteen-year-old college student, Maria-Jose. Still, I find meetng people who are letting you into their home for the first time to be a bit alkward. We had lunch together and I realized how much work I really need on my Spanish - if people are speaking directly to me I'm fine, but otherwise I only catch a bit of what's being said. So, I decided to take Spanish lessons at the school I'm volunteering with, something I haden't planned on before.

I'm about to go explore the city - it's pretty colonial from what I can tell, entirely centered around a Parque Central whcih looks straight out of the 1800's (no restoration in this city). I may also stop by the cemetary, whcih is close to my house.

Julia

First Post

Hi everyone!

As many of you know, I'm going to be traveling all over this Summer/Fall.  So, to keep people up-to-date, I've decided to join the blog craze and set up an account to which I'll periodically post.  This way you'll be able to follow me, get information, etc.  To start, I think 'll post travel dates:

Xela, Guatemala: May 5-June 12

New York, USA: June 12- July 5

Cuzco, Peru: July 5- Aug 23

Valparaiso, Chile: August 27 - December

Of course, you can always e-mail me (jel2@rice.edu) to get more information and, hopefully, I'll be able to set up my phone so that it works abroad.  

Love you all!