6.19

Note:

Woo, did I get busy! I'm updating these last few days SUPER late, as I have time. I want to finish out the last week and remain true to my commitment; better late than never, right? So for Thursday....

Emily

Florencia

San Vincente 

Today is a movie day, very easy. Just like last Thursday, anyone who isn't watching is in physical therapy. Emily and I entertain ourselves, after chatting with a few of the staff, by making door-hanger templates that the women will color tomorrow. I've been wanting to do some sort of project with them, because coloring in coloring books for two hours is boring for ME and I can't imagine going to do it every single Tuesday for the rest of my life. After the movie, we talk to Alicia for a while, then Florencia asks for something to remember me by. I take a picture with her, and tell her I will print it out & bring it to her in the morning.

Ixchel Museo

The group is going to the Popoh Vuh Museum today, so Hallie and I opt to go to the Ixchel textile museum instead. The museum shows the way the fabrics are made & the difference between each region's patterns and dress. Pictures are forbidden, but I sneak a few anyway. It's much of the same information that we got from the woman in San Antonio, but the creepy mannequins are interesting. There's a wall with some traditional headdress guides, so we try those out. I wish I could have gotten more pictures, there were some beautiful pieces hanging all around. We meet up with the group as they are finishing crafting their clay pottery. Tomorrow is my last day, and as much as I want to go home, I'm feeling a little sad to leave.

6.18

San Vincente 
Emily and I get to work and we are informed that there is a Group here, today. The ladies are upstairs praying, so we join them for the rosary before wheeling them down to the community room. Around 40 high schoolers, boys and girls, show up a few moments later. They have nail polish, a guitar, snacks and games. This is by far the best, most interactive group I've seen here. They stay for two hours talking with the women, and making sure each of them has some individualized attention. I couldn't be happier. Florencia is much better today - whatever the doctor gave her must have worked. She is wheeling herself around flirting with all the young boys and making the girls paint her nails. This makes my heart swell. The change from yesterday to today is very dramatic, and it's nice to see that she isn't in pain anymore. When the group is finished, they help us take everyone back to their rooms to get ready for lunch. A few of the kids want pictures with Emily and I, because they've never talked to Americans before!! It's time to go before I know it.

The group is going to San Antonio Aguas Calientes to learn about weaving today, so Hallie and I opt out, having done that last Wednesday. I spend the day relaxing and trying to catch up on this blog (not too successfully). We eat a quiet dinner with Don Pablo, the guard. He doesn't speak any English, so we have a fun time trying to communicate stories back and forth, and he's full of jokes. I'm not sure if it's my Spanish that has improved since being here, or just my confidence. Regardless, I find I'm understanding more when people talk to me than I ever have before. I'm sad that I don't have a longer opportunity to practice!

6.17

San Vincente
This morning, we wake up and head to work, as usual. Tuesday's activity is arts & crafts, but it doesn't start until 9, so we have half an hour to kill. Emily and I head to Florencia's room to say good morning, but something is wrong. Her door is closed. I knock, and open it. She is still in bed, but awake. I go over to her and she's crying and shivering. I wrap my arms around the small woman as she cries into my hair, telling me she's so cold and her head hurts so bad that she can't get out of bed. She keeps saying she doesn't want to die. My heart is breaking. I run to get the doctor, who promises he will be in, in a moment. Emily and I sit with Florencia and talk to her, holding her hands. She starts asking me questions that she knows the answer to - something that really worries me, because she's usually so sharp. I try to convince her to drink some water, but she says she can't or she will throw up. She says she hasn't been eating either. The doctor eventually comes in to take her blood pressure. He spends only two minutes with her before giving her a pain pill for her head, and promising her more later. She drinks some water with the pill, so that's good. At this point, I'm somewhat outraged. Here is this poor, frail woman who is in so much pain that she can't get into her wheelchair and out into the hallway to call for help. Nobody even bothered to check on her, until Emily and I arrived. I tell the doctor that she isn't acting like herself and is forgetting things, but he blows me off and basically tells me "she's old." I convince Florencia to try to sleep and promise I will be back to check on her later. It's all I can do not to cry.

We leave her and go to help with the activity, both moods soured for the day. Two hours pass, and I go to check on her. She's already up in her wheelchair and chatting with a friend. She says her head still hurts a little, but no more than yesterday. I make her promise to eat something during lunch. I'm glad that the pills helped, but I am still worried about her. It's time to go.

Afternoon
Today, our activity is a history lesson about Guatemala. We watch a movie that chronicles the civil war, detailing some pretty gory avenues the soldiers took when killing off the Mayan people. The movie calls it "genocide," but I have heard from others here that it was not genocide, because the villagers were not being targeted for being Mayan, only for being potential or assumed allies of the geurillas. It's an interesting film, but I am miles away, today, and very exhausted. After the activity is over, we all decide to go see a movie in Zona 14 - I am not the only one feeling glum today. We split off into different groups, and I see Maleficent (or as it's called here, Malifica) with Hallie, Emily, Shatianna, Tyler, and Stephen. Stephen and Tyler are a father-son pair from Austin, TX. Shati lived in Dallas for the past year, and Emily is also from Austin. I feel at home with their accents, and the movie cheers me up. After we all return to the Home Base, the evening is spent reflecting on our volunteer positions and how we each are feeling. It's nice to have a support system.

6.16

San Vincente
Today is Emily's first day at work, with me. She's obviously a little nervous, like I was. We get dropped off and I show her around, introduce her to the staff and a few of the women. Mondays are my favorite, because it's exercise day. We get up and dance in front of the women and with them. Afterwards, we chat about the placement and life. It's a short day, but fun.

City Tour Round 2
Today, CCS is taking the group on the city tour. I decide to go, again, because Virginia is giving it instead of Juan Carlos, and I'm interested to hear a different side. The information is the same, but the day is different. Two weeks ago, it was raining and cloudy. Today, it is bright, sunny, and hot. We go through the cemetery, and get out to see the landfill, but something is very different. The smell is overpowering. The sun is cooking the trash, releasing a rotten perfume that makes me gag. There are flies everywhere, and we can plainly see all of the people sifting through the garbage deep in the ravine, running in and over it like ants. Seeing this in the sun is totally different than seeing it in the rain. We're far removed, looking down, and I can barely stand the stench. There are also vultures. Vultures EVERYWHERE. It's like Alfred Hitchcock's Birds, but with giant, horrible scavengers. They're lined up sitting on top of the pauper's graves, looking down hungrily at a skinny dog who is digging through the trash nearby. I have never seen so many vultures in my life. There are at least thirty. I wish I had brought my camera, but no such luck. Maybe I can snag a picture from somebody, later. Even after three weeks, it's still insane to think that this is how people live, here. This awful, stinky, contaminated trash is their lives. Some of the volunteers, this week, are in a school that is next door to the entrance to the dump - a new placement to me. They tell us that many of the kids have moms who go through the trash during the day and prostitute themselves at night - if they don't come to school, it is because Mom didn't come home and they have to look after their younger siblings. The rest of the tour is mostly the same, but I can't shake the image of vultures on gravestones.

Edit: photo of dog, dump & vultures!

6.15

Shuttle
The shuttle picks us up on time, as planned, at 8 am. Gustavo is physically there, and extremely apologetic. We hop in and make it to Chichi within a couple of hours. We're dropped off behind the Santo Tomas hotel and are told we will be picked up in front of the hotel at 2 - the driver even takes us around to show us where. Got it. We swing by the church to catch the end of a service, then shop for a while. The market here is the most popular, and largest, in Guatemala. I get everything I want, plus a little extra, and we're done. We have a little time to kill before the shuttle picks us up at two, so we eat lunch and hang out in the beautiful courtyard and bar at the Santo Tomas hotel.

Here We Go Again
We're standing in front of the Santo Tomas hotel, watching the minutes creep past 2:00, getting nervous. Shuttles keep coming and going, but none of them are our. I finally tell Hallie to wait in front, and take off running to the back. There's a ton more shuttles here, and I start asking questions until I do find OUR shuttle, on its way out. I make the driver stop, and my name is on his list, but Hallie's isn't. GREAT. I argue with him until he agrees to pick her up around front and call Gustavo, who confirms the reservation was supposed to be for two - "oops." We're mad, but we're on the shuttle. I watch the houses fly by, nestled in between crop fields up and down the mountain, and start to doze off. ... A couple of hours later, it is 4:30, and we are in Antigua being kicked off our shuttle. We're dropped at a different travel agent office, who is very, very apologetic. He tells us that the company I booked does this all the time, and that they don't explain to people that the shuttle is not a direct trip from Chihi to Guatemala City, it's to Antigua where we wait for the next shuttle, which won't be by until 7. This sucks. There is a sign in a restaurant, across the street from the offices that says, "Breathe, relax and enjoy," so I do. We walk around Antigua for a bit, but neither of us have any money, and it's nearly dark. We end up sitting at the travel agent offices, mooching the wifi until our shuttle finally comes. Once again, Hallie's name is not on the reservation, but this driver gives us no hassle. The should-be 45 minute trip back to Gua City takes more than two hours, because we have to drop off so many people. We are finally taken back to the hotel we were picked up from, dead last, where we hail a cab to go home. As luck would have it, we get the only taxi driver in Guatemala who can't figure out directions. I end up telling him how to get to the Home Base, and we finally arrive, exhausted. There's a whole crop of new people here to volunteer that we meet, but we go to sleep fairly early. It's been a long day, and I am now on my very last week in Guatemala.

6.14

The Shuttle (or lack-thereof)
5 a.m., another early morning. Face washed, hair in a ponytail, drag myself after Hallie into the taxi waiting for us half an hour later. We're dropped off at a hotel to wait for the shuttle service I've booked to take us to Panajachel. 6:30 a.m. comes and goes, there is no shuttle. I decide to call the guy who booked us from the hotel phone - Gustavo. He says he never received our payment. Uh-oh. We did pay, didn't we? Hallie swears she did. He says he'll arrange for an emergency cab to come get us, but it will cost us 600Q, then hangs up on me. Now I'm getting irritated. We manage to get the wifi password and pull up the paypal invoice, proving we paid. Hallie forwards it to Gustavo's e-mail. I call him back. "Ohh, I didn't know that was your payment."  ... Taxi gets there, and is prepaid, as promised. I decide to let it go, everyone makes mistakes, after all. The important thing is that we get to Panajachel, right? The taxi takes us to right outside of Antigua where we meet our original shuttle, then we're off. A few hours later, we are standing in front of our hotel, the Hotel de Porta del Lago. The view is beautiful. We grab a quick lunch, down a free, disgustingly sugary cocktail, and head to book the afternoon's activities.

Kayaking on Lake Atitlan
We book kayaking and ziplining through a company that works for the hotel. The prices are pretty cheap, and include transportation. We immediately set off to get our kayaks. We hop in the boat and attempt to paddle out onto the lake. Neither of us has ever done this before, oops. Do we paddle on the same side at the same time, or opposite sides? We succeed in making huge circles close to the shore for a while, but this gives us enough time to take some pretty pictures of the water and volcanoes before it starts to rain. We hand off our cameras to the rental place and then make wide circles into the center of the lake as it sprinkles. It occurs to me that I don't know what kind of monsters live in this lake. Certainly, it's too cold for crocodiles, but maybe some big, scary fish? I have PTSD-like flashbacks to Jaws and start to wonder if maybe a kayak was a bad choice, but ultimately we enjoy ourselves. The hour is over too soon, but then it is time for the zipline.

Ziplining
We take a teensy little taxi up the side of the mountain - I can hardly believe the thing can make it up. It's practically a Flintstones vehicle, but powered by a motor that belongs in an RC car. We get to the Nature Reserve, where the ziplining base is. Two guides gear us up, and we get a little practice run on a tiny line over to the side. After we have the basics down (thank goodness I speak Spanish!), we start hiking up. It's not brutal, at least, not compared to the other hikes I've done on this trip, but it's hot and sticky. There are scary rope-ladder bridges that we have to cross, although thankfully they have chain-link fence on the sides. Twenty or so minutes later, we're at our first line out of six. This. Is. Exhilarating. The view is beautiful as we fly over the trees from one platform to the other. On our last two lines, it begins to rain, the drops slapping me in the face as I whoosh through the air. This makes it even more awesome, because the line is slippery and we go a little faster. I fail to brake because of the water and end up turning parallel to the ground, knees braced as my feet slam into a tree & the guide yanks on the break ropes. The rain makes it cool and muddy. We slip and slide down to the final line and it's over way too fast, as always. Afterwards, we walk to a nearby restaurant & then back to the hotel. We shower (hot water AND water pressure!!!), then fall into our beds by 8:30, pooped!

6.13

Friday the 13th
Today, I am informed that I will NOT be going to work, because they want me to go to the doctor to see why I'm still sick with a sinus infection after the antibiotics they self-diagnosed me with, last week, didn't work (imagine that!). I bite my lip about asking to go to the doc last week when I first got sick, but no matter. Another girl, Hallie, caught what I have, so she ends up going to. They take us to a private ER because it's "faster." The ER is very nice, and they are over-accommodating, making us lay in hospital beds while we are wheeled around. A doctor takes some blood and comes back to tell me I have a sinus infection (I had no idea!). He prescribes some stronger antibiotics, an antihistamine, some unnecessary cough syrup, & something else unnecessary. When we go to the pharmacy, I only get the first two. Having bought international health insurance, as CCS required us to, we expect to be fully covered upon exit, but soon find out that is not the case. We have to pay upfront and then be reimbursed. It comes out to only $200 American, but that's still $200 I expected to have for the rest of the week (and my weekend trip to the lake). Lucky us, we won't get an email back about how to get reimbursed until Monday, since it is now the weekend. We get home in time for lunch. There's no activity planned for today, so I go shop for a Father's Day present, and then go to bed early. Tomorrow morning, Hallie and I will have to get up at 5 am to catch a cab to a hotel, where a shuttle will pick us up and take us to Panajachel.