Adventures in Guatemala!

And the journey begins...

2009-07-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

It has been a while since we have had the chance to post. I hope everyone had a wonderful fourth of July weekend :) Saturday was a busy preparation day. Jessie, Avani, and Anushri spent the day attempting to put together a solar over cooking book for the women while Emily and Julie helped translate the recipes into Spanish. Roshen and Julie were also busy getting their diabetes clinic information ready while Brandon was our designated word looker upper. The boys also were in charge of using Anne´s solar oven and making some polenta (or as Brandon likes to call it - placenta) with onions and red pepper. Every hour or so they would have to attend to the oven to mix the polenta and turn the oven so it got the most direct sunlight. Roshen and Brandon were very proud of their work and we get to taste their efforts today! The girls had decided that they are going to cook all our meals from now on - Anne thought it was an excellent idea!

Even though the fourth of July is just another day to Guatemalans, we had to celebrate in our own way. We all took a dip in the lake and spent the evening enjoying each other´s company and some refreshments. Brandon, Julie and Emily decided to venture out into the lake at night despite Julie´s thoughts about things coming out at night. Her luck would be that she got bit by a spider that night...

Sunday was our lazy day. We all woke up right before breakfast and laid around doing nothing. Brandon remembered to bring a puzzle from the school so we tried to work on that. Avani may be the only person in the history of mankind that works on a puzzle based on the color of the pieces. While she worked by herself on the pink part, the rest of us attempted to get the edges done (the sane way to do it). Boredom struck as we realized that the 1000 piece puzzle was probably closer to, oh maybe 800... The day was consumed with LOTS of naps, jamming to ipods and reading. We were lucky to get an afternoon downpour which cooled off the day considerably. At night the cards came out. Kemps and BS were the games of choice and it was an intense night to say the least. Jessie cheated while playing BS but it worked to everyone´s advantage so nobody said anything. Good team work huh? Brandon was a sore loser at kemps and stormed away from the table in absolute fury to feed the fish. Worn out, we all went to sleep around 10.

Monday came and began the promotional part of our program. The crew set out to flyer two towns: one just past El Remate and El Remate itself. Our job was to put as many flyers as possible up in stores and other venues to attract the locals to come participate in the diabetes clinic. The day was hot and grueling as the group worked with their minimal Spanish knowledge to ask the store owners if it was ok to put up flyers in their venues. The end of the day was greeted with a relaxing dip in the lake.

Some of us got showered and called home. We pulled out the cards yet again to engage in what would be an interesting hour of Kemps. Julie and Jessie managed to aquire negative points while the boys cheated their way into winning. Brandon tried to convince us that verbal signs were legal - absolutely not, what a cheater! Dinner was interesting. A beetle landed right in Avani´s plate after which she refused to eat. She tried to kill the bug by covering it up with her pasta - she was not successful at all. As we were eating our delicious banana pudding an enormous suicide bomber beetle nosedived under Roshen´s napkin. Scared out of her mind, Anushri instinctively shot up and leapfrogged on the chairs to the end of the table. Luckily Roshen was able to calmy take the bug away but it definitely got our heart rates up. After dinner, Jessie and Avani decided to go to sleep early. Both needed to use the bathroom and yelped as they saw a massive spider in their room. None of us had the guts to do anything with it so they used the other bathroom and went to sleep - sort of. We have all come to learn that the two of them have WAAAAYYY to much to talk about. Their giggling and talking went on for a while until Julie came up for bed. The spider had managed to leave the bathroom and end up on her bed. She decided that she didn´t want to deal with that and snuck into the big bed with Avani and Jessie. The girls were cramped inthe bed because Jessie takes up a lot of room and took up more than her share of bed space... Oh Jessie :)

Hasta Manana!

We now know the answer to the question: which came first the chicken or the egg?

2009-07-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

The day started out with a sprinkle, but not quite a drizzle. Apparently, Roshen says there is a difference. The day began at 6:30 with some quiet, but rare, reflecting time. Breakfast was served around 7:30 - sunny side up eggs with pureed beans and rosemary potatoes. Anne joined us for breakfast along a student from Arizona State, Emily. We piled into Anne´s truck and bounced our way to the clinic over a long rocky road into town. We then toured the clinic where we met Dr. Enrique. He showed us the clinic and planned what would be happening throughout the week. Some of the things that we are planning on doing are: diabetic clinic along with making soap for the local areas plus making around 10 solar ovens for a few of the families living in and around El Remate.

Before we decided to go to lunch we started searching for recipes that we could teach the women of the village to cook in the solar ovens that we will be making. While Jessie and Anushri were busy at work Julie, Avani, Emily and Brandon went to see the women´s center. On the way back, Anne´s dogs got a little hungry and started to go after a neighbor´s chickens. They managed to kill three, but there was hope as the last chicken popped out an egg during its last breath. Brandon rushed over to save the chick, but realized that all hope was gone because the egg shell was soft and he couldn´t sit on it and keep it warm without crushing it...

After some searching for recipes, we got hungry and decided to venture to the town for lunch. We ate at La Casa de Don David and enjoyed our meal as the tropical climate produced a hellish downfall of h20. The rain stopped for a half-hour where we walked back towards the clinic. On the way back, Brandon was intrigued by a beautiful, young mannequin. He decided to get to know her a little better by caressing her assets. We think he misses his girlfriend?

Back at the clinic, we continued to work on some searching for material for the day. Anne offered us a ride back to the Gringo Perdido. Avani, Jessie and Anushri decided to hop into the back of the truck for the journey back home. Anne being the adventurous woman she is, decided to give us the ride of our lifetime. We stood against the truck bed and imagined that we were playing Super Mario Cart as we dodged branches and leaves. Muy divertido - everyone sitting in the truck was jealous!

We arrived back at the Gringo to discover that our private oasis wasn´t so private anymore. The hammocks were occupied and boy were we upset. Brandond decided to be friendly and converse with one of the couples who, believe it or not, is from Raleigh. Because our normal seat was taken, we decided to sit at some tables and read. Extroverts trying to be quiet doesn´t always workout too well so the time was spent talking about random nonsense - fairly typical. The weather was too cloudy and cold to venture into the lake so we just hung around until dinner time.

At dinner we had to relearn our manners and attempt to be quiet. Jessie and Avani could not contain their excitement despite repeated attempts to get them to be polite. Jessie even yelled out ¨I wonder if they are eating with us¨as one of the couples was walking by our table. Dinner was delicious: potato soup, spaghetti and chocolate cake. We got clean and set up camp at the tables outside the rooms and discussed the hospital system in America. The night ended nice and early at about 10.

Hasta manana!

Paradise

2009-07-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

(the keyboard is different, don´t mind the weirdness)

Hello!

We are safely in Peten enjoying the beauty that is the Gringo Perdido. Our journey was quite interesting...

While landing into Guatemala City, Jessie and I were worried about what was to about to take place. Our game plan: get a cell phone, find the bus station and get to the Gringo Perdido. Jessie had been lucky to meet a woman on the plane who gave Jessie her cell phone, but we had no minutes for the phone so that had to be purchased.

Customs was a breeze, we looked like typical Americans with our huge backpacks with far too much luggage and our enthusiastic attitudes. I tried to ask around with my minimal Spanish knowledge for a place to buy a cell phone within the airport, instead the nice man offered me his cell phone to use. Ok, so onto plan B, search through the city. We walk out and are greeted by an official airport taxi service man and told him what we needed. He showed us to two taxis where to loaded up our stuff and were hopeful that we were going to get what we wanted. We stopped randomly in the middle of the road to find out that we had missed our desired stop for a cell phone. The taxis continued to journey into town where we stopped at a electronic store to buy another cell phone. Jessie and I hopped out of our taxis and went inside. Lots of cool cell phones to purchase but we bought the lame one: no camera, FM radio, nothing... It was only $20 so we figured it was ok to be boring. The purchasing took a while so while Jessie and I were in the store, the others were a bit paranoid about what was going on. Brandon kept peeking in the store nervously to figure out what was going on, all the while Jessie and I were talking with our taxi driver, Hugo. We bought the phone but had no minutes. We had to purchase minutes across the street at the pharmacy. We didn´t tell the people in the taxis what we were doing so they were a little worried, ooops. Being the whimps that we are, Hugo had to help us cross the street with the flood of oncoming cars. We made it safely, bought the minutes and were ready to go... well, we had to give him american money so that he could pay for us in Q´s... who knew we would need to exchange money with a taxi driver...

We were about to get into the car when we remembered that the phone that Jessie had been given had no charger, we needed to find one. Hugo drives us to a street, stops (while still in the street), bangs on a fence, shows the phone to the vender who is behind a curtain, they find a charger, we pay the money and that was it. I was sitting in the front seat of my taxi looking out the window trying to figure out what the heck was going on. It was a bit sketch and Jessie´s face was priceless (pure confusion really.)... Ok so onto the bus station.

We arrived at Linea Dorada to find that we have hours to wait on the station before out 9:15 bus, it was 3:00 in the afternoon. The food was minimal but the entertainment was abundant. We had a man do some Michael Jackson moves for us as we laughed hysterically and tooks pictures. Lots of women would stare at us as if we were crazy American, which we are. Time to leave finally came around and we boarded the bus for our night time adventure.

What a night it was. Windy roads, bumps, lights on in the bus and random stops. Sleep was hard to come by as we wondered how we were going to know when we were at our final destination. At about 5:30 in the morning, we were woken up by the driven telling us we were in Peten. In our delirious state we were led off the bus, handed our bags and passed off to a taxi driver. We were dropped off at the airport so Jessie and I knew where we were and knew that the taxi was going in the right direction. We arrived at the Gringo Perdido safely at about 6:30 in the morning. We ate some breakfast and started what was probably one of the longest days of our lives. Lots of bonding, laughing, sleeping and enjoying the sun. The night was wonderful as we went to sleep at about 9 and woke up at 6:00, life is rough... :)

Today we met with Anne and Dr. Enrique and figured out our game plan. Today is planning for the week. Everything is wonderful and we will try to write soon!

Hasta Luego

T minus 2 days

2009-06-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

Gosh, it seems like just yesterday that we were tossing about ideas about the trip and now we leave in a few short days! This are crazy trying to make sure that we have places to stay, ways to get there and making sure that we supply our parents with enough information so they don't have panic attacks. We wanted to keep a blog in light of everything going on just to let you know that we are doing ok. We cannot wait for the experience!

:D