Lo siento, pero no me olvide-- realmente!

I'M SORRY DON'T YELL AT ME! I know it's been a month since I've posted (exactly a month, actually), but it's with good reason, promise! In all honesty, I'm usually too tired to put effort into something intelligent or I'm just out all the time and my actual work comes first. But I haven't forgotten about you guys or posting, thanks for having patience/potentially continuing to keep up with my adventures if we're Facebook friends (missing Instagram so much right now)!

Since I last posted, I've:
1. Contracted a parasite, and gotten rid of it (mostly, I think)
2. Contracted homesickness, which hasn't really gone away yet
3. Gotten stuck in a flood, and was totally drenched from head to toe
4. Learned basic greetings in Kaqchikel, and greeted an older man as a woman (but it made him laugh so it's all good)
5. Walked around my town and learned what it looks like, how cobblestone-y it is, and how incredibly beautiful it is right after it rains
6. Learned how hectic and busy the markets in Solola become on market days
7. Got my ass grabbed by an older woman trying to sell me all 7 of her tablecloths at once
8.Went to Antigua for 4 of the most relaxing, hilarious, and memorable days of my life, which included a chocolate museum, salsa lessons, live music and licuados, hot showers, closer relationships, braiding hair, dancing, taking photos, cappuccinos, and laughing so hard tears stream down my face
9. Figured out definitively what I'm going to be researching
10. Screwed up some field notes (but learned how to write them too)
11. Played soccer with primary school kids
12. Learned about the effects of the Guatemalan civil war from survivors
13. Talked about Britney Spears' old music with a guy at a bus stop, who turned out to be one of my most important contacts for my research
14. Jumped off a 50-foot cliff into el lago de Atitlan with 5 of my friends
15. Hiked from San Marcos to Santa Cruz (3 towns over), partly in the rain
16. Learned a bit about Mayan spirituality, music, philosophy, and math, and how they're all intertwined to accentuate beliefs and values
17. Learned how to bargain in the markets of Panajachel
18. Learned how to properly pronounce "Panajachel"
19. Slipped and fallen on my butt, physically and figuratively
20. Found the shower here
21. Learned how amazing and intelligent my professors are
22. Learned how amazing and intelligent my friends here are

^^these are just some of the highlights.

I promise to actually elaborate on this stuff in the coming days, seriously. Like I told my friends to pester me about updating until I do it. Cause it's late here and I'm exhausted and I know that's no excuse, but I want to make you guys feel what I felt when I was experiencing this stuff and actually write it well. So keep ya eyes peeled in the next few days for updates (they'll be shorter, but no less detailed, than the novel I posted last time)!

xxxxx

Parte Uno...

I’ve been so MIA these past four days, but I just got Internet connection so it’s all good. Hopefully I’ll be able to post more often but I’m still trying to stay as off-the-grid as I possibly can. I haven’t posted since Saturday, and even that wasn’t so elaborate, and now it’s Wednesday, so I’m going to do my best to sum up the past three days as best I can without boring you guys to tears. J

Saturday we left Guatemala City and made our way to Panajachel (pronounced like “pana-ha-CHEL”), which is a few hours away (not sure in which direction though, I guess I could look it up). We drove 2 hours in little vans, and for the majority of the ride I stayed up to watch the scenery. Guatemala City is pretty commercialized, but every ad is in Spanish and they advertise either Tigo, which is one of the main phone companies, Claro, which is another main phone company (like AT&T and Verizon), Pepsi, and World Cup stuff or products endorsed by the World Cup. It’s very dirty and not too pretty, but I was fascinated anyway, everyone in the van was. We stopped in a place called Tecpan (“tek-PAN”), not for any particular purpose other than for food at this restaurant-ish thing. The place where we ate was a small room off to the left side, with a weird check-in place on the right, and down these paths looked like a colorful, abandoned Narnia. There was this playground with bizarre animal statues that you could climb on (and we did), different houses that looked kind of like ones you’d find in Victorian-era kids’ books, bottles filled with colored liquid hanging from under a bridge, empty alcohol bottles and flowers hanging from the roofs of little gazebos, sheep tied to ropes in random places, dogs in cages, and as if the place weren’t kind of eery enough, there were speakers playing Kansas songs without the words. But they had a swing so I was happy ;) and it was a cool place to take photos so I didn’t mind.

Lunch wasn’t really traditional Guatemalan food, but they did give us horchata, which is this drink made with rice, milk, and spices like cinnamon. It was kind of interesting, and took some getting used to (maybe because I’m not used to drinking rice). After we ate and talked at our tables for a bit, we had a few more minutes to hang out and take photos before we were onto the next place. I stole my friend Casey’s huge black Nikon and ran around taking stupid pictures (so many selfies), and when she went to take her camera back, she accidentally whacked me in the eye (because it was around my neck) and I guess the whole exchange was funny because one of the co-directors of the trip, Carla, and one of the van drivers started cracking up. This kind of stuff happens so often; I may as well have my own reality show.

It only took around 30 minutes to get to Iximche (“ee-SHEEM-chay”), which is a collection of Mayan ruins that the Maya actually still use today for different rituals and celebrations. It’s beautiful, and really vast. Which is what you’d expect, I guess, but for my first time visiting Mayan ruins, I was kind of caught off guard by how enormous the landscape was and how small I felt (and looked, in photos taken of me). Adriana, one of the students on my trip, who’s actually in her thirties and from Romania (grad students come too!), told me her mom used to read books about the Maya and other proto-American tribes, and was so struck by actually being there she got emotional.

On our way out, there was this little stall with a Mayan woman offering in Spanish to tell us what our spirit animals were, or something like that. I was surprised at how well I could understand her (and super proud of myself)—from what I got, I’m a monkey, born under the Aq-ab-al and a kindhearted, good-natured soul with powerful, calm energy. I don’t actually know what any of that means but I’ll take it. Other people got armadillo, turtle, bat, etc.  

We got to Panajachel not too long after we left, actually maybe an hour or so. To get to the city, we took this really long, windy road that I’m pretty sure was down a mountain, and when you got past how fast we were going and how many twists we were navigating, you could actually enjoy the view behind the trees, which was Lake Atitlan and the volcanoes, whose names I don’t know yet, and they’re so massive they shoot up into the clouds and it looks like you’re staring at two twin Kilimanjaros, without the snow caps. I took a few shitty pictures, and even after I edit them, they don’t really show you how…3D everything looked. The lake seems really far down and far away and the volcanoes look like subtly striking shadows, but when you’re driving past it with minor interruptions by little wooden stalls of natives selling their homemade trinkets, it’s memorable. It’s even better when you take Dramamine for your motion sickness (soooo grateful I’m not plagued by that).

Once we got to the hotel, which is nestled into the different shops and is surprisingly hard to point out when you’re walking around (speaking from personal experience), we dropped off our stuff and went to walk through the little market that’s not really so little. I wasn’t planning on buying anything, but I wanted to see everything anyway. We walked down really far and ended up finding a little alcove with a balcony leading out onto the lake with the volcanoes right in front of you—one of the best parts of the day. We took a few photos and wandered back around to the hotel, stopping for ice cream (mine was basically a banana on a stick but UGH SO WORTH IT) and looking in the stalls (I liked the art best, a lot of the stuff looks the same already).

Dinner was uneventful and after that we had another orientation, this time with just the anthropology trip people, so it was more relevant. We all sat in a square, with Tim, Carla, and Charlie (the program directors/leaders, if I haven’t said that before) at the front of the room. Carla went over some of the logistics, and gave the papers to Tim so he could give us the sex talk. And yeah, it was significantly more uncomfortable than you’re thinking. Tim’s not young, which is fine, but he was SO graphic and ended his little shpiel with “so whatever you’re thinking, don’t, ‘cause you can’t hide from me. I’m gonna know, whether you want me to or not. And it can be weird or not.” …Yeah, whatever. As he’s digging his hole deeper, Carla is sitting there laughing and shaking her head whenever he says something weird and Charlie, who’s new at this, is biting her lip to keep from cracking up. I guess it’s going to be an entertaining seven weeks, in the very least…

Sunday I met my host family, which ranks as one of the most awkward and anxious days of my life. The family speaks mainly Kaqchikel, one of the Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala, which is fine except their Kaqchikel accent is so thick, I can’t understand their Spanish. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting an accent, or just didn’t think about not being able to understand them, but my first meal was something I’m not eager to relive. It may have been just my appearance or my paranoia, but I could feel their eyes on me the entire time I was eating, and I HATE when people watch me eat. HATE IT. And because it’s the rainy season, it rains almost every afternoon, so it was already pretty gloomy. My host mom told me she and a family were going into the neighboring town for the market, and were gone for several hours, so I was alone for like four hours in a new village where I stood out like a seriously sore thumb. Even though I managed to occupy myself with a book and my music, it was torture. It felt like someone cut my tongue out of my mouth, threw it into the bushes, told me to go look for it, and walked away. Even when I could understand what someone was telling me, I was too nervous to say something that made sense. Forget culture shock—I think I was shell-shocked.

Carla called me that night and asked how I was settling in, because we talked before about Concepcion and what my family was like, and I told her that I was okay but really nervous. She told me that it was normal and natural, but that made me feel worse somehow and after we talked for like 20 minutes, I was up for the next two hours trying to calm myself down. The next morning was okay, but once I met up with my friends in Solola to go to class in Pana together, and they started talking about how amazing and welcoming and accommodating their families were, I could feel my eyes welling up. I wasn’t jealous, just frustrated, honestly. I knew my situation would get better, but I was impatient and a little disappointed. And anxious, oh my god. Once we got to class and we went over the syllabus, expectations, I was so overwhelmed I felt like throwing up, so I did (not in front of everyone, obviously). Honestly, just thinking about all the assignments I’d have to do in my community combined with my inability to understand the people I was staying with, who were supposed to be the most patient with me, made me feel faint.

Whatever, I got myself together and went back out with the group and it was fine. We were hanging out a bit before lunch and I felt okay, and then we had to actually eat and I couldn’t do it. I stayed at the table with everyone, got up and threw up again halfway through, washed my face and went back to the table. After everyone ate, we were supposed to go on a little tour of the nature reserve where we had class, and my friend Kristen kept pushing me to tell someone and get it out (I mean I have zero poker face so it wouldn’t have been long before I lost it anyway). I pulled Charlie to the side and started talking, Carla joined in after a minute, and I genuinely don’t remember what I even said because I was talking so fast—word vomit I guess (first Mean Girls reference out of the way woooo). I felt semi-less stupid after I got a lot of my thoughts out, but I hate crying in front of people. We didn’t finish talking, and the group separated for a bit as we were walking out of the nature reserve to catch buses back or to hang out in Pana, but Carla and I ended up in the same cluster of people, so after everyone went their separate ways, we talked more in this coffee shop right across the street. She told me about how difficult her fieldwork was and that fieldwork in general is really taxing (physically and emotionally), that part of the point of the program is to get us acquainted with ethnography and to support us in the process. We talked for like an hour, and I felt like whatever I was drowning in was sucked through the drain and I could dry myself without a towel. I found my friends and we caught a bus back to Solola (they’re called chicken buses, and if you’ve ever played chicken in the pool, you can figure out why people get so motion-sick on public transportation) and I made my way back to Concepcion. My stress was replaced with some confidence, and though my battery wasn’t fully replenished, I had enough to function. Even when I got lost coming back to my homestay (didn’t take long). Sometimes I forget how new things are to me.

So, the moral of this post and those couple days? Seeing new places and faces creates the most amazing feeling, there’s a difference between sucking it up and throwing it up. I’m fully capable of making the most of my experience and dealing with the difficulties and complications of what I’m doing, but I’m also nineteen and I’ve never been dropped off in a village in a foreign country where everybody speaks a different language and conforms to a different culture. I’m totally fine with falling on my ass, and I welcome it, but it means an incredible amount to have someone help you to your feet. I should try to remember that…

xxxx 

I'm too tired to write a post that makes actual sense so I'll write about it next time I have wifi-- but today we went to this weird restaurant place on our way to Panajachel, the Iximche ruins, and we're staying the night in Panajachel. Everything is beautiful, especially Lake Atitlan (which is literally 2 blocks from me right now). The place on the way to Pana was basically a really colorful, abandoned Narnia with sheep tied to leashes on poles, and Iximche was enormous. Lots of people tried to sell me things in the markets and all I bought was a banana. Okay the end for now but I'll be more specific (and more intelligible) next time!
xxxx

Day 1 of The Gringo Diaries

Guess who has two thumbs and is finally in Guatemala?! THIS KID RIGHT HERE. I was so nervous yesterday morning I felt like if I opened my mouth at all I'd cry or throw up or both, so up until the plane ride to Atlanta, I was kind of a wreck. But after landing at ATL, a lot of the people on my trip were in the terminal on my flight, so I was relieved to meet people so soon. They're all really sweet, the girls totally outnumber the guys, but it's all good. I didn't realize there are basically two trips in one, an anthropology section and a social work section, and the latter is way bigger than the former (there are like 10 or so people in my group!). None of us really knew what was going on-- the leader of the trip has been really vague-- so it was a slow start, but we all made it to the hotel and everything's good. We had a small orientation in the evening, which was basically just question and answer stuff. We had a lot of free time yesterday also, so after we got dinner at this pizza place, some people went out. Most people are 21 or up here, I'm one of three younger students (so people started calling me "baby"), but the drinking age is 18 so it doesn't matter I guess. I didn't feel like tagging along with like 16 other people to find a non-sketchy bar, so I stayed back and joined some people who were drinking wine on the roof. You can see a lot of the city from the roof, and it was so nice and clear last night.

I love looking at people here. I'm so not used to how people look, and their faces fascinate me. Before I left, some people asked what Guatemalans looked like, and I just said they looked Mexican. That's not so PC though and I'm sure once I get to know the people, they won't all look the same.  I'm trying not to stare, because that just makes me look even more like a foreigner ("gringo" in Spanish), but literally everyone has the same look. And nobody is tall, like I tower over a staggering amount of people at 5'2'' (THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, ESPECIALLY PEOPLE OVER AGE 5). One of the directors of the trip, Carla, said it's going to be like that when I get to the town I'm living in. So I guess blending in isn't really an option-- not that I really considered it, with pasty skin, a curly 'fro, and blue eyes. 

Okay I have like zero time so this post is going to short but as soon as I have wifi again I'll write something that's actually deep ;)

xxx

Baby's First Post

Yooooo! Welcome to the blog I made like fifteen seconds ago! For those of you weird enough to Google me (mostly my friends who thought they were funny-- especially you, Kellie), this is TOTALLY different from the blog from 2009 that talks about my "Jewish identity" in really awful prose. So expect something different, less stupid, and more heartfelt, less bored, and more adventurous (and hopefully more intelligently and sophisticatedly written). And I should probably explain in full why I'm writing this: I wanted to keep a more public journal of my adventures and misadventures in Panajachel, Guatemala, where I'll be filling my mind with Mayan history and my heart with Mayan culture, in a small town/village called Concepcion on Lake Atitlan. Facebook is going to be so far from home with such little time, and sending 9,483,404,982 emails to people isn't on my list of fun things to do. Plus typing helps my hands keep up with my head, and I won't get carpal tunnel from trying to handwrite everything in a tiny diary. 

I also wanted to keep track of how much I change from this trip, because I guess it's inevitable. One of my professors at school told me after spending a year in Mozambique and South Africa, it took her some time to get used to seeing white people around. My stint in Central America is really short compared to her experience, but I'm anticipating monumental change all the same. I thought just moving from a small, private Jewish school to enormous College Park, Maryland made me into a different person, so I can't wait to see how living in an entirely new community in a different country on almost a different continent will change me. I have zero idea what to expect-- Guatemala isn't a third-world country, but I'm also in a relatively remote area with no tourism and a traditional people who have literally been here for thousands of years. 

That said, there are some things I don't see changing so quickly. I'm still a teenager, and I speak with a lot of slang and I curse (but I'll try to be good). I write how I speak, so this blog is going to be basically like talking to me, just over the computer a couple thousand miles away. If I say something that sounds confusing or just a weird expression in general, definitely let me know! I'm going to try to post photos as well, you know, so you can balance out my boring posts with some visual stimulation. Please tell me what you think, though! Don't just sit and listen, raise your hand if you can help it ;)

I'll try to write again soon after I get there, and I'll say more interesting stuff that's not boring, obligatory introduction. 

xxxx