``thats so sick´´

so this past week we were in the campo (which basically means that we were out in the beautiful boonies of the salvadoran mountains in a district called Chalatenango). i stayed with 2 of my friends (alice and annie) with one of the bacaria students in the casa program, Adela, and her grandma, Abuela Julia. there are so many stories to tell but i´ll just share a couple little things right now.

the town we were in called Nueva Trinidad was adorably small with about 400 people. the first night we got there they had this little gathering in the center of the town with pretty much the whole community. there was this guy that carried around a megaphone with like a mic thing connected to it to talk to everyone and he made us
introduce ourselves which was embarrassing already because everyone was looking at us but then we had to speak spanish through the gynormous screechy machine. it was pretty comical to say the least.

since we were there during semana santa (holy week) and the entire town is catholic...literally...we went to mass a bunch of times and participated in all these processions which were really cool. there was this one kid who just made me laugh every time i looked at him though. he was kind of a squirrley lookin kid who petered around during mass thinking he was super cool because hes bff with the priest. during one mass we saw him get up and crouch down by the side of the alter and pick something up which turned out to be a host that had apparentely dropped on the floor. now what he did after just kills me, its so representative of the central american church and how real they are with everything. he picks it up and makes a face like he just smelled somebody´s old shoe and kind of examines it for a bit in his fingers, then he got up and turned to the priest to tap him on the shoulder who at the very moment was in the process of holding up the host and wine to say ^this is my body this is my blood^, hands it to him who then blows on it and puts it in with the other hosts and continues on with the mass. so ridiculous, i couldnt help but laugh.

julio came with us to the campo (he helps run the romero program with the salvadoran students) and hes been slowly learning english from the students over the years so me and annie decided to teach him a couple new phrases. annie is from cali so all the surfer lingo is rampent and we all started saying them as a joke so we taught him how to say 'thats so dank dank 4 20 bro' (translation: thats ridiculously cool) and `thats so sick´(translation: pretty much the same but shorter). its funny cuz i dont think people actually talk like that (although ive never been to cali) but to hear a salvadoran with their cute spanish accent say it randomly almost makes me pee my pants every time.

we definitely came on a good week too so because it was semana santa, it was also vacation so the town had a huge soccer tourney that took plce every day but good friday. they had one real standard sized soccer field and then smaller practice field that were both really nice and they played all the games on the smaller one. a couple casa students actually played in the tourney that were staying in the town (annie, megan, austin and jim) which was so fun to watch. the day of the championship games was super intense, there was like 4 different sections playing because of the age differences and the whole town would show up to watch all the games every afternoon. the older boys final game was probably the most intense soccer game ive ever seen with brothers playing on opposite teams of each other and it ended with a shoot out that determined the winner. then there was even an awards ceremony after where the top teams got little medals. annie and megans team won the girls division so they both got medals...so sweet!

abuela julia, who is adela´s grandma who we stayed with was quite the character to say the least. she was a typical old and wrinkley salvadoran woman missing all but like 4 teeth. not only that but she had the campo accent too so i really could not understand half (probably more) of what she said, but she was always laughing (probably at me) and making endless amounts of tortillas. basically she does what she wants. we all really liked her right away despite being a woman with a hard shell. she was always telling us that we needed to shower more and she was like convinced that i wasnt eating. i have no idea why because we always served up the plates at the same time with the same amount of food on it and ate at the same time but she was usually making tortillas when we started eating and refused to stop what she was doing to eat. as a result, i guess i just eat fast but i was usually done or almost done by the time she sat down so she thought i didnt eat. she would tell me every time that i needed to eat more (i think she just wanted me to eat more of her tortillas) so i started waiting to eat until she sat down and i would take huge bites right when she was looking, haha. it kind of became a joke with all of us. one of the last nights she told us that she was voted the queen of the old people in their town the previous year which cracked us up. she had a tiara and sash that she tried on for us and told us that they had a parade and she had one truck all to herself in the parade and she threw out lollipops to all the kids. when we were leaving to come back to the city we had given her hugs and said our goodbyes and the 3 of us looked back and she was washing dishes at the pila and she was crying a little bit. we said goodbye again but she wouldnt look at us because i dont think she wanted us to see that she was crying. i guess she really did grow fond of us and it was really great to see her hard surface break al little bit.

los sitios

so yesterday i went with 5 of my casa friends to one of the praxis sites called Los Sitios. one of the bacarios who lives in my house, Neto lives there so 3 of us went to his house for dinner and hung out with his family for a while. theyre so great and it was fun to see where he lives. then we made our way over to Julio's house, who is like Neto's best friend, and Julio helps run the program for the bacarios. he brought out like 15 photo albums so we could look through all the past years of casa adventures. Julio's been so many different places it was awesome to peak into all his memories. we hung out with Julio's family too, a couple of his nieces and nephews, super cute and full of energy. then the town held this dance party thing under this tent in the middle of the town and ad you can guess i was all about it. so we went with Julio and Neto and it was crazy fun. it was actually more like a rave minus drugs plus people of all ages. they threw out glow sticks to everyone and we were there until like 2am. it was so much fun and i won a $5 bet with my friend MaryBeth for dancing with seriously the oldest man in the place (im talking 70+ years), lol. it was pretty funny. then we all had a sleep over at Julio's and stayed up talking til like 3. basically an excellent day.

tomorrow we leave for the campo, which should be super interesting since it will be during holy week (semana santa) and we're told that there are ton of processions and such for the occasion. a couple of my hopes for the week are to chop some sugar cane down with a machete, learn how to make pupusas, lay on the ground and stare up at the stars because i know they'll be crazy visible there, and maybe ride a sweet horse barebacked. ill let ya know how that goes!

silent retreat

so this past weekend we were on a silent retreat in Guatemala which was excellent. i wrote a little poem/piece of writing/whatever you want to call it that is a good sum up of my experience:

there is something about the earliest hours of the day, before the sun even opens its eyes to the world that catches a certain beauty.
moments where its like a second from raining and you hold your breath to spare the spot you walk.
moments you see the misty clouds tap the shoulder of the mountains.
moments of getting lost in a sugar cane field and watching the dew drip off the stalks and crash into the dirt.
moments where tiny monks in black robes rush past you with a quiet exhuberance that makes you smile.
the moments spent having a staring contest with a cow, looking into her giant eyes wondering whats going on behind them.
moments greeting the flowers with a first sniff as they open up to say hello back.
moments spent taking a wrong turn on a path only to discover the honey bee boxes with the tiny creatures hard at work.
moments spent listening to the stream that runs all around the sugarcane fields and gardens.
moments where you smile walking into breakfast at 7:30am because you´ve already been up for four hours.
the endless moments of silent secrets the world keeps hidden unless we seek them out.
moments with your eyes closed and it feels like the earth quakes, your heart shakes and your body breaks, but you open your eyes again as if for the first time and see the single red leaf of beauty in every picture.

so breath deeper, look closer, smell stronger, touch softer, walk slower.

let go and let in.

because these moments happen whether you´re looking or not.