Adiós Guatemala, I'm going home.

After boiling more water than I can fathom and squishing more bugs than I care to remember, my time in Guatemala is nearing el fin (the end).  And while I certainly am looking forward to the luxuries of America, its no surprise that what I want most is to see you.  Four months away from friends and family is exhausting, and now that the end is so close, I am spending all of my time dreaming of home.

Well, almost all of my time...  First, I've got to say goodbye, and never in my life have people said goodbye to me like they have been here.  The ceremonies (and yes, I actually mean to use the word "ceremonies") started more than a week before my departure!

Last Friday, my team took a mini-retreat to see some beautiful waterfalls which are an hour outside of Nebaj.  We spent the day just relaxing: we walked through shallow streams, waded at the base of a waterfall, grilled and ate, and ate, and ate...

Here's a pic of me in front of the bigger waterfall:

And here is some of my team in front of the smaller waterfall:

Last night, we had a second big going-away meal with the team.  A couple of my colleagues made a very impressive feast consisting of green bean-beat tostados (better than it sounds), cilantro-mint potatoes, fresh salad, lemon tarts and even coke floats.  It was a lot of fun, but by the end of it, I was sure I could never eat again!

Tomorrow, I take my last dreaded, chicken-bus journey to Antigua, where I am finishing up my list of "things to do in Guatemala."  My team is coming also, so I'll have a lot of company going to a place where I can get areal views of the city, visiting a coffee plantation, and having yet another going-away-meal at Panza Verde, the best restaurant in Antigua. 

After breakfast on Saturday, I head to the airport.  And when the plane lands, I'll be home!   :o)

...another man's treasure

When you volunteer in a place like rural Guatemala, you expect that sometimes, you roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.  But in my wildest dreams, I never expected to do what I did this week.  For the last three days, I have been working with several other volunteers, teachers of el Centro (the community center where I teach my art class), and 70 students to collect... trash. 

Most Guatemalans litter without a second thought.  In larger towns, the municipality cleans up pretty frequently, but rural towns remain lined with empty soda bottles and chip bags. Aside from being a sad sight, it leads to unhealthy practices.  People will swim in extremely polluted lakes, and the lack of general education of environmental matters can take a larger toll on the health and wellness of people in these villages.

As such, over the last three days, we aimed to teach children the importance of taking care of their community, while making the otherwise tedious task of picking up trash enjoyable.  By giving them some fun projects, we really inspired them to take care of their communities.

For one activity, we painted planets while learning that Earth is the only planet in our entire solar system that can sustain life; therefore, we have to make an effort to take care of our planet.  Here is the Earth, drying in a tree in the sun (with some other planets in the back):

On the morning of the second day, we really got down to business.  The kids broke down into smaller groups to pick up trash, and here's my group getting ready to start.  (They have plastic bags over their hands because we couldn't find gloves.) 

These kids were incredible, amazing, motivating and fun.  Despite the fact that it was about 90 degrees in the blazing, hot sun, my group ran around for two hours and collected FOURTEEN full bags of trash.  My job was to hold the bag as they collected it, and I was constantly running after them to keep up.  The kids collected trash by jumping into rainwater-drainpipes, climbing through barbwire fences, and even shooing away barking, growling dogs.  It was awesome!  In one of the funniest moments of the day, three boys hit up a goldmine when they found trashcans behind a store.  They were so excited to find it, which goes to show that one man's trash certainly can be another man's treasure.

Afterward, they had a big lunch as a reward for their hard work:

Although I was exhausted from the first two days, the last day was my song-and-dance - an art project where we reinforced what we learned.  The kids drew their ideal home - a beautiful place without any trash.  They also made huge posters with the lyrics to the song we had taught, and we gave them certificates for completing the Earth Day Program. Some pictures of the last day are below:

The painting process:

My group with their certificates and poster

(English translation of the poster: "We are the future.  We want a world without trash.")

The trash truck that we filled up to the brim, pulling away the waste of La Pista

The kids and some volunteers proving that we dirtied our hand in the cleaning effort:

More holidays, in Antigua

Again, a note to subscribers:  I'm not sure why my computer decides to pre-email things, but I apologize for the half-entries that I fill your inboxes with!  Clearly, I'm getting sloppy, but here is TAKE TWO:

Like many of you, my holiday-season has quickly come to an end.  Tomorrow, I head back up to Nebaj and get back to my projects, but over the last few weeks, I have been resting and relaxing in and around Antigua.

The holidays were very different for me, and although I hated being away from home, they were some of my best experiences in Guatemala.  On Christmas, I was suffering from a cold, but another volunteer and her host family invited me to spend the holiday with them.  Afraid that I would get everyone sick, I initially declined, but they insisted that I not spend the holiday sick and alone.  In no time at all, the graciousness with which they invited me into their home made me feel better!

I thought partaking in foreign traditions with strangers would be a very awkward experience, but somehow, it was very comforting to be with this family when I was missing mine.  Christmas Eve is a bigger holiday than Christmas Day, and around midnight, the family invited me to pray with them in front of the Christmas tree.  Again, I thought this would be awkward, but I quickly realized that in different languages to different Gods, we all said essentially the same thing.  At their core, people are more alike than different...  Then, at midnight, fireworks illuminated the sky in every direction and everyone ran into the streets to hug their neighbors and wish everyone a merry Christmas!  I have never hugged so many strangers in my life, but no one seemed to mind that they didn't know who I was.  Everyone was just happy because it was Christmas!

After Christmas, I spent a few days resting and recouping while staying in Antigua.  When I was here for training, I didn't get to fully explore all of the amazing restaurants in the city.  In the last few weeks, I've had decent sushi, Thai, Mediterranean, 'Californian' (that's apparently a cuisine), French and even fairly decent Indian.  I've also made it to the gym about every day (Nebaj doesn't have a gym), and have spent countless hours in various cafes with a large coffee or fruit smoothie and a book.  Tough life, right?

While most of the States are freezing, the temperature in Antigua is very nice: tank top in the sun, a light long sleeve in the shade and a sweatshirt at night.  So for New Year's Eve, the main square becomes pedestrian- / concert-friendly.  There were three stages with music and even some obscure entertainers on the street.  For example, a man danced around with a wooden contraption tied to him that shot fireworks off of it.  There seemed to be no way to control the direction of the rockets, and while Guatemalans ran toward it to get a closer look, I ran away!

After a few hours of enjoying the public entertainment, two of my colleagues and I went to a very nice restaurant in town.  We had an amazing, huge meal and at midnight, we had a champagne toast on the restaurant's terrace Again, every town around us had fireworks, and our restaurant even bought sparklers for all of us as well as actual fireworks to have right above our heads.  My eardrum may have suffered long term damage, but it was a great show!

Here are some pics from New Year's Eve:

The lagoon/patio area of the restaurant where we ate, all dressed up with fragrant rose petals:

Me with the fireworks that the restaurant gave me.

It looks really smoky, but really it just smelled like the 4th of July!

 The fireworks-in-a-box show that we were given.  After running from the man-in-an-explosive-box, being this close enough to take this picture was a comfortable distance away!!