Santiago

Well, Maria did not show up yesterday, which I half expected, but that was disappointing as I really liked her when we met in Nobvember, and it was the last bit of research I had scheduled. But alas, I had a lovely lunch at Hotel Bambu, a place where the group I came here with stayed last November. If you ever want to come enjoy the lovely Lago Atitlan, come in November and stay here for at least part of your time! It is owned and run by a Spaniard, and the grounds are gorgeous (and are what you see in the photos--plus the Santiago docks...)

I have all my belongings sitting here in the office awaiting my shuttle...
treated myself to a last lunch at the Sunset Bar and Grill and then ran into Martita, my dear friend who ran the Nebaj office of Puente de AMistad! I heard my name and looked up and there she was, across the street, here with a group for a ONE day training.....they left Nebaj at 3 a.m. and have now gotten back on the bus (and then 3 more) to head back t Nebaj...OH MY!

see you all on the other side!

Shangrila?

Just when you think you have found your personal shangrila, it morphs....in my case, on the town side of the river there was all this digging going on. Silly me, I thought they were FIXING something or building a new bridge. But no....it turns out they just exposed the sewer pipe so the sewer could dump directly into the river, which flows from there directly into Lago Atitlan! Somehow my daily quaint pedestrian "hammock bridge" crossing has taken on a whole new character.....

Today I an debating whether to cross the lake to Santiago for an unconfirmed lunch interview with a faciitardora there, or just bag it...The interview was initially set up by someone else, and the interviewee has not returned her phone calls or mine to confirm...SOOO Guatemala! It is my last bit of research here and I really wanted to have the interview, so I will probably just go...espcially since I have nothing else on tap for today.

Tuesday I got to oparticipate in a 3 hour training for new facilitadores, (employees who are the link with the Trust Bank groups), so that was interesting for me! (Ostensibly I was there to take video for the presenter, but I ended up getting to participate, plus meet up again with some people I had met int he Quiche office on my way down here. And then i was invited to lujch with them. So that was really nice! And yesterday I was able to meet with two women from the education office here that are in charge of curriculum and instruction and planning for the Nebaj Learning Center. So I was asked to share my "report" of observations and suggestions for the center, which made my time there feel even more worthwhile. And the new executive Director here took me out to Santa Catarina for a thank you lunch yesterday, which was a real treat! He, too, wanted to hear about my experience in Nebaj. Nebaj is the farthest away and most remote of the regional offices, and most people here in this office don't spend a lot of time there, so first hand information, observations, and then, because i am a teacher, my suggestions, have been most welcome. My lunch with Christian kind of put a cap on my experience here and brought closure to thew whole thing (minus my iffy interview today!).

So I have changed my schedule and decided to come home 5 days early to have some Memorial Day weekend with my dear, supportive and sweet Don---at loooong last! He is the real hero in all this,making everything possible!! SO I am taking the shuttle to Guate tomorrow afternoon and flying home on Saturday. Hooray! I am very excited for this reunion!!!

Panajachel!

Hola from civilization!I am back on the stunningly beautiful and seductive Lago Atitlan in Panajachel, where I have a little studio apartment(my room and the complex's porch are the first two pictures) of sorts across the river on this pedestrian (and moto)only "Puente Hamaca" (Hammock Bridge)just outside of town. I will use this week to work in the office here (which I have done all day today)wrapping-up my "report" of recommendations for the learning center and meeting with people about various things. Also I have a lunch interview scheduled with a facilitadora I met here in Santiago (across the lake) last November, and I hope to get to accompany her (like I did Diego) on her rounds to visit clients. Early next week I will go to Antigua for three nights of R & R before catchging my flight home on May 28th.

Sunday morning I got to not only walk through the market, but I had reason to BUY fruits and vegetables for a change, and have been enjoying the challenge of preparing food for myself with a stove, a frig, but no counter space to prepare food on, and no indoor sink (except the one in the bathroom). Rinsing, washing dishes, and the like (plus washing clothes) is done in the "pila" which is an outdoor sink that is ubiquitous in these parts. The complex that houses the apartment has a few others plus the family that lives there, and it is a GORGEOUS retreat/garden/getaway... and the room is spacious, airy, and has lots of natural light,which is a treat even if the room is very bssic. And...I have my own bathroom now!

Yesterday I took a launch (a SMALL boat) to Santa Cruz La Laguna....for reconnaissance for maybe next weekend.....As I was sitting waiting on the boat (they wait until they fill up), on walks a woman I recognize---from Nebaj!! She's waving from the boat in one of the photos.) Too outrageous! She works as a volunteer in Chajul but lives in Nebaj and we chatted for probably an hour one night in ZEl Descanso......and there she was! Just down here for the weekend with a friend...

Santa Cruz, and really just the lake in general, are amazingly beautiful, as I keep saying.....so last night I painted from one of these photos.... the volcano one...

There is another woman living where I am at "Chinimaya," and she is a teacher who has been here in Guatemala for 16 years! She has invited me to come see the school....saying "We always need teachers..." The night I arrived (Friday night in the dark and pouring rain), I had been driven by an employee here with my 2 bags over to the bridge...but you have to walk across. So Javier walked one of my big bags across while I took the other....So nice! Then this woman, Yannie introduces herself and explains things to me, along with Florinda, the owner or caretaker, I am not sure..and then when I explained I needed to go back to town to get some dinner, Yannie asked if she could go with me--which was GREAT because the company was so nice, plus I didn't yet have my wits about me and was a little wiggeed out with the rising river and the rain and the dark! So that was a nice welcome...And after dinner I was able to buy yogurt and bananas for the morning....

Now I am quite settled, happy to be back in Pana, and actively engaged in wrapping up my Guatemalan experience this week!

Acul

About a week ago, while still in Nebaj, on Saturday morning I took the microbus to a pueblo called Acul, which my guidebooks said was beautiful. It was started as a "Development Poll" after La Violencia and the signing of the Peace Accords, but its original purpose depends on who you talk to. In any event, refugees from the war years were resettled there...and since then the UN has worked a lot in that town to help create a better life for people there. The upshoot is it is VERY BEAUTIFUL now! The guidebooks say there are two haciendas run by a Guaremalteco-Italian family, and I found them both. They offer places to stay as well as food, so I had planned on having lunch at one of them, assuming like a gringa that there were restaurants there! Aftera long but tranquil walk up a driveway-road, and seeing there were tables, but was not exactly a restaurant, I knocked at the half-open door and called out "Buenos Dias." The senora told me it was tooo early for lunch! Disappointed, I returned to the main road and figured it was worth a try at the other place. So I walked up their driveway, knocked at the kitchen door, and asked "Hay comida aqui?" The senora invited me in and I sat at her kitchen table while she finished feeding a baby who turned out to be her grandson. Then she passed the baby off to its great-grandmother, whom you see in the photo, and continued to chat with me while she prepared my lunch for Q40. It was the most delicious meal I've had!! i WAS INVITED INTO THE HOUSE, PROPER, BUT ASKED IF i COULD GO OUT ON THE PORCH WHEN i SAW HOW LOVELY IT WAS. oOPS...IGNORE THE CAPS, PLEASE.....So I ate pork and rice in a salsa verde (I am sure the pork was from their farm), a quesedilla with cheese produced next door, fresh tortillas, and watermelon. The meal was absolutely scrumptious and the setting sedfuctively tranquil! Then I enjoyed a leisurely walk back up the road to Acul, where I encountered these kids playing with their pigs....:-) This is life in rural Guatemala.....

A Quiche Birthday

OK, so over dinner in the tiny cafe at the hotel last night, I confessed it was my birthday and thanked Paul and Danny for celebrating with me. They didn't believe me! So I produced my passport as evidence, and then they got all excited trying to figure out where we could go or what we could do to celebrate. But it was pouring down rain, and thundering, and lightening, and Danny has no coat with him! Turn out he is just 11 days younger than my Aaron....I think the planets must have been alligned at that time that year to produce computer whiz-geeks! (I say that quite lovingly, dear ones...) aNYWAY, we would not have had a clue where to go, as it is s mysterious here as Nebaj, so Danny insisted on buying my dinner and we said goodnight.
A little while later there was a knock at my door and there were Danny and Paul, soaked from going out in the rain...with a little package of two Hershy's-ish chocolate cupcakes with two matches lit and stuck in them for candles!

It was so sweet!You will just have to check back later for pictures when I can post!


They are working today and I am in the city "center" exploring and connecting here....I guess we won't leave until afternoon.

In Transit to Pana

Little did I know when I typed that quote onto this blog...about throwing your heart over the fence and the rest will follow...at my kitchen table in Tumwater, Washington, just how true it would prove to be. And continues to be...as with each new chapter, I once again make that toss and have faith that the rest will follow. At the moment I am sitting at a desk of a mystery Friendship Bridge employee in Santa Cruz de Quiche, hanging out while my traveling partners service the computers here. They did the same at El Centro Aprendizaje in Nebaj, where I met them and hitched a ride back to Pana, rather than trying to figure out and get on the four busses in four cities it would have taken on my own. Most of my belongings I packed two days ago, and they went in another car that left earlier...so eventually I hope to be reunited with my stuff, especially my computer! Until then, no photos...Sorry! I have been thwarted for days in my effort to add photos to my last post...and now there are so many more adventures and goodbyes! But they will have to wait.

It was a sad and sudden goodbye this morning....and a flurry of activity once I realized I was actually leaving. Back to the hotel to gather the rest of my stuff, a run to my two favorite restaurants to say goodbye, a quick phone call to a couple of other friends and quick meeting with them, a visit to my Spanish teacher's house....Somehow it had not really hit me until we were driving out of Nebaj that I was really leaving there, as it is so unusual for me not to be on foot in Nebaj....But now I am enjoying a very unusual birthday (these guys have no idea!) traveling with two fellows about Aaron's age and in Aaron's line of work which is fun! The change of scenery and company is nice, and being in a different town is entertaining. I think they have more work here to do in the morning, so I will likely go exploring. And then we'll be off to Pana.
Once in Pana and reunited with my stuff (which I hope doesn't end up locked in the Pana office all weekend!), I will have better internet access with my computer, as there is wireless in the office. In fact, Danny, one of the techies I am with, is the one who set up my computer with their wireless account when I first got to Pana 6+ weeks ago now. (But I did not recognize him when we first crossed paths in Nebaj.)I have only a guess at where I might stay in Pana this time, as Francesca is in England and someone else is living in her house....but we shall see.

So we had Pollo Campero for lunch (take-out) (KFC eat your heart out!...not!)here while they worked....and I have been enjoying having internet access here in the office!

MORE FROM PANA IN A FEW DAYS....and some goodbye photos of those who took care of and won my little heart when it landed alone in Nebaj...OK..(later) The first photo is of Juan and Felipe who were my diligent caretakers at Villa Nebaj where I lived whiled I was there. They took care of me when I was sick, we played in the hail together, Felipe brought me Pan de Semana Santa con fruta y miel on easter, and they jsut generally made me feel welcome, safe, and secure. The next photo is of the Mexican taco place and its daily workers (although not owners), a brother and sister with whom I became acqauiunted as I walked past htere iveryday and ate there frequently. And finsally you see Martita, the office manager at Puente de AMistad with my teaching partners, Heydy and Victoria.

Daily Life at El Centro de Aprendizaje

This past week I worked mainly with the jovenes (young teens), assisting Victoria. The theme for the week was How to Be a Good Leader, and the intent to really encourage these young adults to stand up and take a leadership role in their lives at school and at home and at work (nearly all of them work at something.) After the lesson I worked with them on painting a namecard for a photo of their group for an electronic message exchange with my friend Norma's Spanish students at Chinook. This has been a big project, as when we began two weeks ago, none of these kids had email addresses. While we worked on helping them each obtain an email address, gmail's system (and Yahoo and Hotmail systems) would get suspicious of so many addressed being arranged on the same computers (thinking we must be spammers), and cut us off for the day! We learned to then switch to a different one....and eventually, I think now, nearly all the kids have addresses. I have typed them up, and sent them along to Norma last Friday. This coming week we will take the group photos with the kids holding their name card (clever how I worked painting into THIS activity too, no?), and send them along to Chinook as well, so the Chinook kids can see to whom it is they are writing!
The photos here include games the kids led for each other in their groups, plus of course painting....In one of the photos the game is "Deer, Hunter, Wall," a version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors," and another is something along the lines of "I love you but I can't smile for you," a game we have in "Los Estados" too!