Holidays in Tikal

If you already got this in email, I apologize - I wasn't done yet but my fingers worked faster than my brain and before I knew it, I "Enter-Enter'ed" right into your inbox!  But you can scroll down for a few more pics!

For the rest of you -
Given that I couldn't be home for the holidays, this week was the perfect time to vacation in Guatemala and check out another tourist attraction: Tikal. 

Tikal is an archeological site within a national park, within a jungle, within the vast no-man's-land of the Peten.  As early as the 4th Century BC, Mayan communities were developed and clusters of immense structures were created for nobility to live in and to study astrology.  They developed accurate calendars and could even predict solar and lunar eclipses, but without explanation, the population disappeared.  The most prominent belief is that people died of starvation following a severe drought.  Over time, new civilizations started in the region and to give you an idea of how inaccessible it is, a little fact: after claiming the rest of Guatemala, it took Spaniards an additional 150 years to make it through the jungle to discover Tikal.  Of course, by this point, any proof of the old civilization was fully swallowed by the jungle, and the modern world only discovered these ruins about 60 years ago!

Since I'm not quite brave enough to make a trek through the jungle (and specifically not a jungle that lies on the Colombian drug route), I flew.  But even that was a lengthy journey.  After my art class last Saturday, I took three chicken buses down to Antigua.  The next morning, a shuttle picked up at 4am to take us to the airport in Guatemala City.  From there, we took an hour long flight to Flores, where the hotel's shuttle picked us up and took us on an hour long ride to Tikal.  By 9am, our journey had ended and we started our tour of the ruins!

Thanks to Global Warming, Tikal had some very strange weather.  Instead of the heat and humidity associated with a jungle, it was pouring rain and pretty cold.  To some extent, this was a blessing in disguise: the jungle trees provided a nice shelter from the rain and the coolness kept the malaria-mosquitoes away.  However, we did see lots of spider-monkeys and exotic birds.  My favorite was the wood-pecker (cause they are the easiest ones to find - you hear them before you see them!)  I also enjoyed swinging from the vines like Tarzan!  Now, picture time:

Me and ruins in Plaza Central

I was lucky enough to catch an authentic Mayan Ceremony!  Ancient Mayans predicted a catastrophic event will occur on December 21, 2012, and exactly two years prior to that date, a local priest held a ceremony at a sacrificial sight.  The cluster of people in the lawn were a part of the ceremony, and the structure in the back is Temple 2:

The "stairs" (really a ladder) up to the top of one of the ruins:

The view from the tallest of the ruins.  They call the jungle "The Green Sea" because the jungle goes on for as long as the eye can see!

The toothpick tree -- I looked out for these suckers because I did not want to trip and fall on its thorny stalks!

My Christmas music is better than theirs! :)

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas, 
Ev'rywhere you go, 
But there's no tree in the Grand Hotel, 
Nor one in the park as well, 
Not here,
In Nebaj.  

...Yes, that's right - I just made up my own awful rendition of a Christmas classic, but that's what happens when you go through the holiday season without hearing any carols!  Over the last month, I've been humming Christmas music to myself and making up the words as I go.  I've even taught some of the Guatemalan staff butchered versions of Christmas carols. Just last night, we had a Christmas party where they sang (and danced to) my re-written version of the songs!  It was all quite entertaining...

Aside from bringing my holiday spirit to Nebaj, the town has its own, unique traditions.  Whereas Black Friday marks the beginning of the US holiday season, on December 8th, Guatemalans burn a wooden devil in the town square to get rid of any evil spirits and kick off the Christmas season.  There is dancing in the streets and fireworks through the night.  In fact, every night since then, there have been encore presentations of the festivities.  As we get closer to Christmas, the middle-of-the-night merriment just gets louder.  This morning, they rang church bells from 4am to 5am continuously to accompany the outdoor live-band performance.  AT 4AM!

This ridiculous tradition of early morning celebrations has gotten my butt out of bed well before I would prefer.  Although I've had to suffer through some pretty bad music (even worse than my Christmas carols), the upside is that I have seen some of the town's morning rituals. Soon after the roosters start calling, the whole town is up and bustling.  Like in most developing countries, there is much to do in the morning.  Women hand wash clothes and hang them on the line before the sun gets strong.  By 7am, the markets are open and people are buying their groceries (a lack of refrigeration means buying on a daily basis).  Businesses are spraying water in the streets to minimize the amount of dust and dirt that carries into their offices.  Despite all of this, the best part of waking up early is seeing the sun rise over the mountains. Here are some pictures of dawn in highlands and the busy markets in town.

Sun rise:

A view from one of the streets right outside of town:

Chickens at the market (They are loud: puck-puck-puck-PUCK-PUCK!):

A little boy keeping his turkey on a tight leash:

The hat man, all set up and ready for the day:

Even though the markets have the best quality and most variety of foods in the morning, I strongly prefer going later in the day.  The morning bustle reminds me of the opening scene in Aladdin... and I am even more confused than Princess Jasmine was!  After having a very uncomfortable face-to-face interaction with an angry, squealing spotted pig, I decided that I would rather buy my veggies after the farm animals have been sold off!

More to come next week, after my trip to Tikal!  Adiós!

A little of everything

Time flies when you're having fun.  I'm more than half-way done with my trip, and there are sooo many things that I have not told you yet!  I don't even know where to start with this post, so I'll give you tidbits and photos from everything over the last two weeks.

Thanksgiving
Although I'm used to living away from my family, this was actually my first Thanksgiving away from home.  Here, I celebrated twice - once with Guatemalan food and once with American.  In the Guatemalan Thanksgiving, we had a big party with everyone's families.  They served pepian, a very rich, traditional soup.  There was lots of salsa/meringue (I don't know the difference) and a full blown Guatemalan celebration.   The American Thanksgiving was more traditional.  The Americans made dinner, which turned out surprisingly good considering none of us had put together a Thanksgiving meal by ourselves.  We shared dinner with the Guatemalan staff, so it was fun to able to teach them about one of our traditions, for a change.

Black Friday: Hiking
I don't particularly enjoy getting up early the day after Thanksgiving.  I've done it before -- for work, to cram in errands at home, to get school work out of the way, maybe once or twice, even to shop.  But this year, I had decided I would NOT get up early the day after Thanksgiving.  And then someone planned a hike, and I heard that there was a Swiss Cheese Farm at the end of the hike... what?!? A Swiss Cheese Farm in middle-of-nowhere-Guatemala?  This I had to see!  Unfortunately, it had rained the night before and much of the trail was a muddy mess.  I was so focused on putting my foot in a place where I wouldn't slip that I almost forgot to look up and take in the views.

Here's me taking a breath on a gigantic rock formation that we came along

(Yeah, I know, let it go...  I'm just not a Northface kind of girl):

 

The cheese farm really looked like Switzerland!!!  Complete with cows, cow-bells, terracotta roofs and of course, delicious Swiss Cheese!

Here's the cheese room.  After months of not having real cheese, even stinky Swiss smelled wonderful.

Art class
The weekly art class that I teach is going really well.  I initially expected 5, maybe 10, kids, but on the first day, I was greeted by TWENTY-SEVEN children!  Even in English, I would not be able to handle that many kids on my own, so I broke them up into two more manageable sessions.  Every week, I drag one of the other volunteers in my organization with me to be my ayudante ("helper").

This road leads to the school where I teach.  It's a 15-minute bus ride out of the town, and as you can see by the chicken crossing the "road," it really is very, very rural:

Here's my youngest group of students.  My two "roommates" were kind enough to get up early on Saturday morning to join this class.  As you can see, we made paper snowflakes (coincidentally, later that day, the first snowfall of the season hit all of you back home).  This was their first time making snowflakes, and I tried to teach them how like people, snowflakes are all different, but uniquely special... I don't know how well I conveyed that in Spanish, but they loved the exercise anyways!

Antigua
I went down to Antigua for a few days last week.  My organization has monthly meetings so we get together in our main office.  It was nice to be able to eat at restaurants and stock up on things like tea and spices, but I missed Nebaj.  The ride down there is a long one - six hours of chicken buses is NOT a comfortable journey!  Fortunately, I'm well experienced with the ghetto-bus that runs back and forth from New York to Delaware, so I can stomach crazy bus rides pretty well.

Nebaj
I've been in Nebaj over a month and I haven't given you much detail on my actual surroundings.  Nebaj is really high in the highlands: 9,000 feet above sea level and surrounded by mountains.  Up here, most people speak Ixil (ee-sheel), a language derived from the ancient Mayan language.  Everyone learns Spanish in school since books and TV are in Spanish, so with the exception of some of my youngest art students, I can communicate with everyone.  The total population of Nebaj is about 8,000 people, so it is a very small town.  The women wear traje, traditional clothing that includes a crimson skirt and hair pom-poms.  These outfits are specific to the women in Nebaj and no one else in Guatemala wears their style of clothing.  Even though it's a tiny, little town, people have pride in their rich heritage, which makes it feel very homey.  Below are some pictures in and around town:

Catholic church right in the town plaza:

During weekends, I sit on the rooftop of my hotel to study Spanish.  You can see how the town is surrounded by mountains:

A woman's typical dress.  They braid that fabric into their hair and tie it around, using the pom-poms to tie it up.  This head-wear is supposedly pretty heavy, and I'm still working up the nerve to ask someone to put one in my hair.

 The weather here can be unpredictable.  Since we are close to the equator and at a high altitude, sunny days are very hot.  When the sun goes down, the altitude makes Nebaj pretty cold.  There are also times when we are literally in the clouds, like in the picture below:

Well, I guess that's all from me right now.  I hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving and you're kicking off of the holiday season right.  I'll be in touch again soon! <3

It's peanut butter jelly time...

Last week, I wrote about my fairly lame attempt at cooking with local ingredients.  Well, this past week, I cranked it up a notch.  This post may not be as entertaining as others, but I got into the crux of work, so I hope that by the end of this, you have a better sense of what I am doing here.

As I mentioned before, I’m about to become an art teacher at “el Centro,” a community center.  Students at this center are starting a Peanut Butter Project, a popular program in developing countries worldwide, in which children fundraise for their schools by making and selling peanut butter.  It seems simple enough, but the project goes a little further.  Unlike meats and other proteins, peanut butter is a very affordable.  This project uniquely aims to fund education while simultaneously addressing malnutrition.  I found the project interesting, and so, I could not help but get involved…
           
Well, they make peanut butter, and I have a restaurant at my disposal, so the result was pretty clear.  I have been working on a special menu showcasing all the wonders of PB.  One of the issues with peanut butter is that consumers are not familiar with the product; in fact, they think it looks sticky and iicky and kind of like… poop.  So with our new menu, the restaurant will help financially support the Centro, while showing how the product can be used.  Thankfully, my menu idea got a seal of approval from the powers that be.

Firstly, I helped make the peanut butter (not as hard as it seems). We taste-tested a few kinds and decided on oven-roasting the peanuts (vs. pan roasting) and using a local honey made by a co-operative of women in Nebaj.  Although a bit more expensive, the honey tasted the best and allowed the Centro to support other local businesses – a concept that we all loved.  With the PB, I tried few different dishes, having both foreigners and locals taste-test along the way.  I designed the menu and the marketing and trained the chefs and wait-staff..

I never expected to wear a restaurateur-hat, but I’ve actually had a lot of fun with it.  So much fun that I had to throw-back to my old banking days to make sure that I was actually down here doing what I came to do: make a difference.  Making conservative assumptions on the sale of my favorite new product (the veggie burger) annual bottom-line profits break down as follows:
      -         $335 for the restaurant

-         $120 for the Centro / students

-         $11 for the honey co-op

The numbers admittedly don’t sound impressive, but keep in mind this is only one product.  Additionally, you have to consider the situation: 

-         More than half of people here live below the poverty line ($1 a day)

-         School materials for one student cost roughly $30 a year

-         The richest 10% of people hold over 40% of national wealth

-         A majority of the restaurant’s clients are tourists, business travelers and upper-middle class Guatemalans

As such, the menu actually helps redistribute income in a very capitalist and teach-a-man-to-fish sort of way.  It promotes hard work because everyone benefiting has to create a product.  And, best of all, it is fully sustainable, meaning it does not require my on-going attention or that of any other foreigner…  Lastly, the Centro theoretically can fund educational resources for at least four more kids because of veggie burgers.  Who knew?

I'm back and I do it all

I'm back!!!  On the web, that is...  My internet has been so awful for the last week that I bought my own wireless modem.  Now, I can receive your emails, IMs, and Facebook pokes, because I am back!!  Honestly, a week without internet seems like eternity, and despite all of the things I am living without (my favorite foods, central heating, clean water, English), internet was the thing I missed most.

But before getting into that, a little bit about my work.  I am primarily working with Turismo Ixil, a tourism organization started by the Peace Corp, but now fully owned and managed by locals.  The group consists of a hotel, restaurant, hiking business, language school and internet cafe, and my job here is pretty much what I make of it.  They have some ideas for projects and I bring my own thoughts to the table. Together, I have a broad range of projects; from redecorating the restaurant to building a relationship with the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism (a government agency), I do it all.  And by that, I literally mean that I do it all.  When I have an idea, no matter how big or small, I implement it.  In redecorating the restaurant, I found myself sanding and painting by candlelight in the middle of the night (when the restaurant was closed).  Fortunately, the wait-staff and other volunteers are super sweet and helpful, so we made a fun -- albeit, freezing -- painting-party out of it.  Here we are chipping paint off of a wall that previously reminded me of the circus.  (I'll share post-makeover pics once everything is done.)

Picking my own projects leads to unexpected twists as well.  I was bored out of my mind this weekend (television in Spanish is just not interesting) and decided to make use of my sketchbook.  One of the volunteers saw my drawing and suggested I teach a drawing class.  It sounded like fun so I brought it up with some teachers, and... bam! I am an art teacher!!!  In about ten days, I start teaching a weekly class (or two) at a local community center.  That's just how things go here. It's fun to be able to come up with my own projects, but I am collecting projects faster than I can keep up with them.

Other than work, time in Nebaj moves at a snail's pace, so even though I have a lot of projects, I also have a ton of free time!  I've been trying to come up with some hobbies: studying Spanish, reading, cooking, drawing, and now web-surfing!  Fortunately, I do have good company down here.  Two other girls from the States who work here also live in my hotel.  We each have our own rooms, but share a kitchen, bathroom and living room, so it's like having roommates.  We generally wind up having dinner together and have even started a Sunday ritual: big brunch in the morning, studying some Spanish during the day and watching downloaded Grey's Anatomy at night...  it's a fond reminder of college-life. 

Lastly, I've taken up the challenge of trying to cook with local ingredients.  So far, I've done a pretty good job.  I even found a way to make French bread pizza so the girls and I can have pizza-and-beer nights.  Pizza may not seem like a big accomplishment, but my kitchen consists of a toaster over (with no temperature settings) and a stove top and few seemingly normal ingredients are available here.  One example: when we tried to make chocolate chip pancakes, we realized there was no chocolate...  Yes, you read that right.  Not only are there no chocolate chips, there is no other types of chocolate either: no squares, nor bars, nor stash of leftover Halloween candy... nada (nothing)!  Other things that are missing include real coffee (not instant), real cheese (not queso fresca), wheat bread, olive oil... the list goes on.  But, on the upside, at least I have internet! 

I'm a star in Nebaj

Over the years, I have gone by many variations of my name. My friends from my neighborhood, school and college/post-college all pronounce my name differently. When I was younger, I tired of correcting people and accepted any close proximity to my name. It wasn’t until I got to college (and had an Indian roommate that insisted I not Anglicize my name), did I begin correcting people until they finally learned it properly.

And then, I got to Guatemala... The “Shr” cluster is completely unheard of in the Spanish language and my home-stay family only learned it when the little girl equated it with “Shrek.” Needless to say, I don’t like that comparison, and people suffer so badly with my name that my associates decided to give me a Spanish-name that sounds close to my own.

My Spansih name is Estrella (“es-stray-aa”), which literally translates to “star.” As such, I always get an interesting response when I meet someone new. Amongst my favorite:
- Ah, si? La estrella de mi corazon! (Oh, yeah? The star of my heart!)
- Mucha gusta, mi llamo Luna (Nice to meet you, my name is Moon)
- Utd es la luz del noche! (You’re the light of the night!)
From this experience, I have come to learn that no matter where you are in the world or what language you speak, one thing carries true: one-liners are just plain cheesy.

Regardless, I’ve finally made it to my last destination and home for next three months: Nebaj. On the surface, Nebaj looks like any other “small town” in Guatemala: stone-paved streets, a buzzing open market, and a white church in the center of town. Despite these appearances, the fact is that Nebaj is quite different. Until 1996, Guatemala was involved in a 36-year long civil war. Ladinos (Guatemalans with Spanish ancestry) made an aggressive attempt to wipe out indigenous Mayans, and here in Nebaj, the genocide was among the worst. Often times, entire families disappeared and everyone here has a personal story of the war. Due to this horrible history, many Mayan towns still remain reluctant to trust outsiders, but Nebaj has embraced any help it can get. For this reason, it is a hot bed for NGOs. Unlike the tourists of Antigua or the ex-pats of Pana, foreigners in Nebaj are here working with aide organizations.

In an effort to keep posts short and interesting, I’ll tell you more about what I’m doing here next time around... In the interim, I just wanted you all to know that my intenet has been sketchy at best, so I apologize if I’m slow on email responses. I do, however, have a cell phone, on which you are always welcome to call me:

From the US: 011-502-4607-2874

Promised pics and what I REALLY do

So, as promised, here are more pictures of the Lake.  The weather here has been absolutely incredible so I spent my Sunday laying by a pool with strawberry daiquiris, guacamole and a breezy beach-read. But alas, the time has come for me to head back to Antigua before making the trek up to cold and frigid Nebaj at the end of the week.

By now, its no doubt clear to you that I could go on and on (and on) about my travels, but you're probably wondering what I'm actually doing here so I feel obliged to tell you a little something about work.  As I mentioned before, this organization works with local women, who hold "campaigns" in rural communities to sell glasses, water purifiers, vegetable seeds, stoves, etc.  Every Saturday, I work at one of these campaigns, and here, I talk to people (like the 79-year old woman below who got her first set of glasses) to get the most honest view of the ways of Guatemala.
 
One example: During eye exams, I've come across many people whose pupils have started turning white due to lifelong dehydration.  People generally are aware that the water is not safe to drink, and because it takes a lot of time and expensive firewood to boil it, they would rather buy it. Theoretically, this shouldn't be a problem since water is pretty cheap, but of course, Pepsi and Coca-Cola have found a way to still profit while selling their products as cheap as water. Soda is so ubiquitous that when I first asked a store owner for agua (water), he asked me what flavor.  Upon seeing my confusion, he explained, "Pepsi? Coke? Orange? Gingerale? What flavor?"  If you're ever in Guatemala, ask for "agua pura" (pure water) for good ole un-patented H2O.


One of my other responsibilities is to come up with information to distribute at campaigns informing locals on simple first aid.  The company initially considered selling basic first aid kits but found that there was no market for such a thing.  Unlike Americans, Guatemalans do not have a designated "medicine cabinet." And while on most things, I can draw a parallel between India and Guatemala, with this one, I'm lost.  Indians may not have medicine cabinets per se, but my grandmother can fend off a fever, clot a wound and even heal a fractured bone using the items in our spice cabinet.  The only spice Guatemalans believe in is salt, which of course doesn't help with that whole dehydration issue I just touched upon!

To start this very challenging product, I'm talking to any person or organization that will help me identify the most important health concerns that locals face.  But obviously, to add any value, I have to go one step further and identify the ailments that Guatemalans need to be educated on.  That is the tricky part!  In the States, we just use Web-MD on top of all of the information that we are already inundated with.  School kids are taught stop-drop-and-roll; Bayer tells us to take Aspirin at the first sign of a heart attack, and every month is awareness month for a different ailment. 

Which reminds me, while I grapple with the Guatemalans, here's a quick to-do for all of my dearly, loved ones back home:  October is fire safety month.  Protect your homes, your families and yourselves; change the battery and test your fire detector.