so tuesday was my 21st birhtday!! wooo whoooo...and no i did not go to the bars to celebrate (not that i couldnt get in before since the drinking age is 18 here...wah wah). at midnight i was presented with a block of sharp cheddar cheese (if you know me at all you know how obsessed i am with cheese...thats my true wisconsinite coming out...and ive been thouroghly dissappointed with most dairy products here specifically the cheese, so it was a huge excellent surprise!) and a wine cooler. i took one sip of and set it on my desk where it sat for like 3 days until i finally threw it out, lol... then in the morning i got up and had frosted flakes (a huge treat cuz we´ve never had frosted flakes in the house since we´ve been here, only regular corn flakes) and a few bites of cake...basically the perfect birthday breakfast filled with tooth-rotting sugar. then i chilled at the house with people preping for a debate that we were going to have in spanish class. then we all went to class and had a debate about globalization, capitolism, privatization and such (quite heavy topics if i do say so myself) after which we went back home to eat a delicious lunch. then i hung out with people all afternoon since i finished my philosophy paper the night before so i wouldnt have to do homework on my birthday. i went to this massage place thats sort of near our house with my friend christine because our theo teacher told us about this place that had hour long 2 for 1 massages for $10 each so we were going to do it. they didnt have any openings that day so we signed up to do it the following tues (which is tomorrow! and we´re super pumped). i´ve never gotten one before so its gonna be my birthday present to myself, wooo whoooo.
on thurs. i had lunch with Trena (one of the people who runs our program) and then she had to go pick up her girls from school so i got to see their international school. the girls were super excited to see a student with their mom and they showed me all around their school and classrooms. Trena said they learn everything in spanish first and then english... what an awesome opportunity for their kids.
friday was Matt´s birthday and we took the famous casa picture at 6am (no thats not a typo...that was just thoe only time everyone in the program could be there, lol) which is now up on the casa website. one with the whole program http://cms.scu.edu/studyabroad/casa/ and the other with just the students from the US http://cms.scu.edu/studyabroad/casa/students/index.cfm check them out if you´d like! for dinner we went over to casa clara (one of the other houses in the program) and we shared a meal and then Mark (a Jesuit, our philosophy professor, and my spiritual director for the semester) shared his life story with us which was so awesome. we´ve been asking him to tell us about his life since pretty much the first day...idk why but we have this strange fascination with his life...and after hearing his story, we had every right to.
saturday my praxis partner (katie) and i decided to go on an adventure to Suchitoto where our theology teacher Sister Peggy lives. it started out fine until we got on the right bus but it was going the wrong direction... we decided to just wait it out and ended up riding the entire 42A route, haha. oops. when we finally got there we ate lunch at this sweet place that had a ton of artifacts from the war. then we went on a mission to find Peggy and we just started asking people in the town where she was since everyone knows her. she has this peace art center that shes working on right now which we toured around when we found her. its not done yet but its a beautiful building and the plans she was telling us that she has for it sounds so excellent. she showed us around town and then we went and chilled at her house for a while.
today at praxis, my class (well more so the teachers of my class since the kids are only 1 and 2, haha) surprised me with a little birthday celebration. they had a cake and all sang to me, it was so cute. then the teachers kept asking the kids, whose birthday are we celebrating and they would all respond MEEEE (meaning themselves, not actually me, haha) then we all ate the delicious cake and they pretty much stuffed their chubby little faces. there was frosting and slobber everywhere, it was really funny.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
well thats a special talent....
a few updates from a crazy week:
- monday i felt my first legit earthquake ever. it was mas o menos 5pm and my friend Karina and i were sitting in the living room chatting when all of a sudden my chair started to shake a bit. my first thoughts were...who is playing loud music with heavy bass...but then i realized that i didnt hear music and the floor and house were also moving and it kept increasing. karina kind of yelped and we looked at each other like...what the hell do we do? bahhhhh, no thoughts, earthquake, no thoughts, bahhhh was pretty much the irrational sequence of thoughts running through my head and i even started laughing a bit cuz i was so thrown off and then she grabbed my hand and we headed for the door to go to the backyard but by the time we got there it had passed but it was pretty nuts. no damage was done, thankfully. it was pretty sweet. (ps i also heard that St. Louis had an earthquake this week...what? thats just crazy talk...so sorry i missed it)
- friday we had a talent show which we have been saying that we were going to do for the last like 2 months but of course no one started preparing until this week. ill give you a quick overview of the various acts we were graced with: marybeth and emory did an indigo girls duet (because they secretly...not so secretly...want to be the indigo girls), casa ita did 2 skits where one person would lay flat on their back on the ground and the other person would sit on top of them with their legs covered by a sheet so it looked like the persons legs laying down were the person sittings legs, felipe and austin did a scene from anchorman (the one where will ferrel is playing the flute in the bar, "totally unprepared"), 6 of the casa romero girls did an irish dance (2 of them, who taught the other 4, did irish dancing for like 10 years), casa silvia (my house) did the dance scene from little miss sunshine (which we first started practicing 45 minutes before the show started and Andy played Olive, the little girl...we were pretty much peeing our pants), a few people did "the cup game" but they added other sweet steps to it, i actually sang "stand by me," acapella which was supposed to be a duet with my friend matt but he wasnt feeling well so i did it solo with Tam and Andy doing the beat in the background (i was so scared i thought i was gonna hurl before hand, haha, i very very rarely sing in front of people and even more rarely do i sing solo...pretty much almost never. i have a ton of pena(nervousness/embarrassment) but i got through it!), and casa romero did a dance extravaganza to the song "lady marmalade" for the finale. basically it was a sweet show, wildly entertaining and my abs hurt afterward from laughing so much.
- yesterday we climbed a volcano which was definitely one of the most intense things i've ever done in my life. i knew i was out of shape but damn, i thought i was gonna die by the end. the hard thing was that we didnt just climb up and down the volcano...oh no, we had to climb a hour down a mountainside to get to the bottom of the volcano, then climb up the volcano which was so steep i literally was on my hands and knees crawling at some points, then climb back down (which was definitely my favorite part because it wasnt really climbing so much as sliding down the side of the volcano along with the volcanic rocks hoping to god you didnt slip and fall forward) and then climb back up the mountainside to where we started from. i was tired but doing fine until we had to climb the last leg back up the mountain. by then everyone's legs were feelin a bit like jello, it was super tough. standing at the top of the volcano though was so incredible, we could see for miles and miles! definitely worth all the hardwork. want an intense workout too. when we got to the top of the mountain we all scarfed down lunch. i ate so fast my tummy hurt...oops. we had apples, juice, and sandwiches with white bread rolls and molidos (delicious salvadoran refried beans), avocados, and cheese. a sandwich that in most other parts of the world would not fly, but here they eat beans with everything and im not gonna lie, it was like the best tasting sandwich ever...probably partially due to the fact that my stomach was eating itself after the vigorous workout i had just pushed it through...im fairly confident that had i eaten tree bark at that time it probably would have tasted like a delicious granola bar or something. nevertheless, i would definitely try making the sandwich again (maybe with the addition of tomatoes...) and the hike up the volcano/mountain was more excellent than i ever expected.
- monday i felt my first legit earthquake ever. it was mas o menos 5pm and my friend Karina and i were sitting in the living room chatting when all of a sudden my chair started to shake a bit. my first thoughts were...who is playing loud music with heavy bass...but then i realized that i didnt hear music and the floor and house were also moving and it kept increasing. karina kind of yelped and we looked at each other like...what the hell do we do? bahhhhh, no thoughts, earthquake, no thoughts, bahhhh was pretty much the irrational sequence of thoughts running through my head and i even started laughing a bit cuz i was so thrown off and then she grabbed my hand and we headed for the door to go to the backyard but by the time we got there it had passed but it was pretty nuts. no damage was done, thankfully. it was pretty sweet. (ps i also heard that St. Louis had an earthquake this week...what? thats just crazy talk...so sorry i missed it)
- friday we had a talent show which we have been saying that we were going to do for the last like 2 months but of course no one started preparing until this week. ill give you a quick overview of the various acts we were graced with: marybeth and emory did an indigo girls duet (because they secretly...not so secretly...want to be the indigo girls), casa ita did 2 skits where one person would lay flat on their back on the ground and the other person would sit on top of them with their legs covered by a sheet so it looked like the persons legs laying down were the person sittings legs, felipe and austin did a scene from anchorman (the one where will ferrel is playing the flute in the bar, "totally unprepared"), 6 of the casa romero girls did an irish dance (2 of them, who taught the other 4, did irish dancing for like 10 years), casa silvia (my house) did the dance scene from little miss sunshine (which we first started practicing 45 minutes before the show started and Andy played Olive, the little girl...we were pretty much peeing our pants), a few people did "the cup game" but they added other sweet steps to it, i actually sang "stand by me," acapella which was supposed to be a duet with my friend matt but he wasnt feeling well so i did it solo with Tam and Andy doing the beat in the background (i was so scared i thought i was gonna hurl before hand, haha, i very very rarely sing in front of people and even more rarely do i sing solo...pretty much almost never. i have a ton of pena(nervousness/embarrassment) but i got through it!), and casa romero did a dance extravaganza to the song "lady marmalade" for the finale. basically it was a sweet show, wildly entertaining and my abs hurt afterward from laughing so much.
- yesterday we climbed a volcano which was definitely one of the most intense things i've ever done in my life. i knew i was out of shape but damn, i thought i was gonna die by the end. the hard thing was that we didnt just climb up and down the volcano...oh no, we had to climb a hour down a mountainside to get to the bottom of the volcano, then climb up the volcano which was so steep i literally was on my hands and knees crawling at some points, then climb back down (which was definitely my favorite part because it wasnt really climbing so much as sliding down the side of the volcano along with the volcanic rocks hoping to god you didnt slip and fall forward) and then climb back up the mountainside to where we started from. i was tired but doing fine until we had to climb the last leg back up the mountain. by then everyone's legs were feelin a bit like jello, it was super tough. standing at the top of the volcano though was so incredible, we could see for miles and miles! definitely worth all the hardwork. want an intense workout too. when we got to the top of the mountain we all scarfed down lunch. i ate so fast my tummy hurt...oops. we had apples, juice, and sandwiches with white bread rolls and molidos (delicious salvadoran refried beans), avocados, and cheese. a sandwich that in most other parts of the world would not fly, but here they eat beans with everything and im not gonna lie, it was like the best tasting sandwich ever...probably partially due to the fact that my stomach was eating itself after the vigorous workout i had just pushed it through...im fairly confident that had i eaten tree bark at that time it probably would have tasted like a delicious granola bar or something. nevertheless, i would definitely try making the sandwich again (maybe with the addition of tomatoes...) and the hike up the volcano/mountain was more excellent than i ever expected.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
so i know thats its been a while....
so i have been really bad at updating this the last couple weeks but we had parents weekend (which my mom, dad, grandma and grandpa came) and then we just had spring break. so i'll give a little overview of what ive been up to lately:
- parents weekend: it was really awesome to have some of my family come see for themselves a bit of what im doing here. it was information and activity packed, im sure they were exhausted after the 6 or so days they spent here. they arrived on thursday, just in time for pupusas. then friday we went to the UCA, a couple classes (they got to experience sister peggy and gene for those of you casa alums, haha). they came on a great weekend too because it was all the romero celebrations. on saturday we went to the romero march in the city center and then mass at the cathedral with all the masses of people. it was a pretty incredible thing for me to experience and even thought none of them speak spanish, just being in the presence of the march and the people was really powerful i think. sunday we went to the beach which was beautiful and very relaxing. the place we went to had a big water slide too which was super fun too. then monday my parents and grandparents came to San Ramon with me for praxis. in the morning we were at Centro Hogar playing and using their last bits of energy with all my little kiddies. then we went to the Soya for lunch and they met all the ladies at the soy project. then we went to Anita's house (where they do the celebration of the word and where the co-op is) and first we did some serious shopping in the co-op which was great because my family loves shopping and the co-op has seriously beautiful things, plus it was nice to support the co-op. then they came with Katy (my praxis partner) and i on a couple home visits. they learned a ton more about the history of the community of San Ramon and the celebration of the word. it was nice to have them there asking a lot of the questions because although Katy and i knew a lot of the answers to the initial questions they were asking, it always seemed to lead into deeper things that we wouldnt necessarily think to ask about, so we learned a lot from those home visits too. then they left on tuesday morning and returned to the states. it was a short trip but a good one, i hope they enjoyed it!
- i just got back from spring break yesterday which was incredible...and thats not doing the experience justice. a few friends and i (my 2 roommates Tamara and Karina and our "fourth roommate" Andy) adventured through guatemala and belize over the last week. it took us essentially 2.5 days to travel through guatemala up to Caye Caulker (pronounced "key") which is a small insanely beautiful and chill island off the coast of belize. we got there by bus and boat, which was sweet but also allowed for the creation of some insane stories along the way. we stayed for a night in Antigua, Guate which was really fun. its a really cute internationally influenced (and pretty touristy) city with tons of artesian crafts and cute shops all over so we did a bit of shopping. then we spent a night in Dangriga, Belize which was this crazy little carribean town. it was pretty weird because they speak english in Belize so for the first like 2 days of the journey i was like tripping out and kept talking to people in spanish...oops. then we got to Belize City on monday midmorning to take the boat to the caye and actually met up with the other group of 4 from the casa that we were planning to meet in the caye. we traveled in 2 groups just to split up a bit for safety and convenience purposes which was a good idea but it was really fun to all be together on the caye. we chilled the first day but the second day we were there we went on a day long snorkeling sailboat trip which was incredible. and since we had a big group we got a discount. there was the 8 of us from the casa plus then the other group of 4 met these 2 girls from Finland actually on their way here so they kind of became part of our group so we had 10 people total and it ended up being like $43 (in US dollars) for the trip per person. it was from 10:30am until 5pm and included all the equipment we needed to snorkel, plus lunch, water and fruit the whole day, a pre-dinner snack and rum punch while we sailed back to shore, and a guided snorkeling tour through 3 spots for like an hour each. not to mention that the barrier reef that we were snorkeling in is the 2nd largest in the world. basically it was one of the sweetest things ive ever done. we were swimming with sharks, barracudas, turtles, eels, a billion different kinds of fishes, not to mention the incredible reef itself. absolutely worth it. we couldnt believe how cheap it was. the next day we just chilled and soaked up the sun at this beach on the island called "the split". our hostel was right on the beach, white sand, palm trees, hammocks, the whole deal...pretty ridiculous. everybody that was staying at our hostel was awesome too, its been really fun talking
to everyone and hearing their stories. then thursday we left about midday for punta gorda, spent the night there and then left on a boat for a town called Livingston in guate because we heard from a woman at our hostel in caye caulker that we could take a boat from there up the rio dulce which went through like the jungle of guate to a port town that we could take a bus from there to guatemala city. we chartered a boat for pretty cheap to take us through the jungle and we stopped at these hot springs and caves for a while. then when we got to the port city we got on a bus to guate city which was supposed to be like a 5 or 6 hour ride but it ended up taking like 7 to 8 hours because the bus broke down on the side of the highway like 20 minutes outside of the city. we stood on the side of the road in the dark for like 45 minutes with all of our stuff until another bus picked us up to take us the rest of the way. then we got into guate city at like 10pm and found this little crappy hostel across the street from the bus station for $4 a person and just crashed there cuz we were so tired. then we got up in the morning and took a bus back home to salvador. theres sooo much more stuff that happened in between all that, but thats the rough overview of our adventures. if youre ever in Belize, definitely make it over to the Caye's if you get a chance, it was incredible. i could have hung out there for another 3 weeks and been totally fine.
- parents weekend: it was really awesome to have some of my family come see for themselves a bit of what im doing here. it was information and activity packed, im sure they were exhausted after the 6 or so days they spent here. they arrived on thursday, just in time for pupusas. then friday we went to the UCA, a couple classes (they got to experience sister peggy and gene for those of you casa alums, haha). they came on a great weekend too because it was all the romero celebrations. on saturday we went to the romero march in the city center and then mass at the cathedral with all the masses of people. it was a pretty incredible thing for me to experience and even thought none of them speak spanish, just being in the presence of the march and the people was really powerful i think. sunday we went to the beach which was beautiful and very relaxing. the place we went to had a big water slide too which was super fun too. then monday my parents and grandparents came to San Ramon with me for praxis. in the morning we were at Centro Hogar playing and using their last bits of energy with all my little kiddies. then we went to the Soya for lunch and they met all the ladies at the soy project. then we went to Anita's house (where they do the celebration of the word and where the co-op is) and first we did some serious shopping in the co-op which was great because my family loves shopping and the co-op has seriously beautiful things, plus it was nice to support the co-op. then they came with Katy (my praxis partner) and i on a couple home visits. they learned a ton more about the history of the community of San Ramon and the celebration of the word. it was nice to have them there asking a lot of the questions because although Katy and i knew a lot of the answers to the initial questions they were asking, it always seemed to lead into deeper things that we wouldnt necessarily think to ask about, so we learned a lot from those home visits too. then they left on tuesday morning and returned to the states. it was a short trip but a good one, i hope they enjoyed it!
- i just got back from spring break yesterday which was incredible...and thats not doing the experience justice. a few friends and i (my 2 roommates Tamara and Karina and our "fourth roommate" Andy) adventured through guatemala and belize over the last week. it took us essentially 2.5 days to travel through guatemala up to Caye Caulker (pronounced "key") which is a small insanely beautiful and chill island off the coast of belize. we got there by bus and boat, which was sweet but also allowed for the creation of some insane stories along the way. we stayed for a night in Antigua, Guate which was really fun. its a really cute internationally influenced (and pretty touristy) city with tons of artesian crafts and cute shops all over so we did a bit of shopping. then we spent a night in Dangriga, Belize which was this crazy little carribean town. it was pretty weird because they speak english in Belize so for the first like 2 days of the journey i was like tripping out and kept talking to people in spanish...oops. then we got to Belize City on monday midmorning to take the boat to the caye and actually met up with the other group of 4 from the casa that we were planning to meet in the caye. we traveled in 2 groups just to split up a bit for safety and convenience purposes which was a good idea but it was really fun to all be together on the caye. we chilled the first day but the second day we were there we went on a day long snorkeling sailboat trip which was incredible. and since we had a big group we got a discount. there was the 8 of us from the casa plus then the other group of 4 met these 2 girls from Finland actually on their way here so they kind of became part of our group so we had 10 people total and it ended up being like $43 (in US dollars) for the trip per person. it was from 10:30am until 5pm and included all the equipment we needed to snorkel, plus lunch, water and fruit the whole day, a pre-dinner snack and rum punch while we sailed back to shore, and a guided snorkeling tour through 3 spots for like an hour each. not to mention that the barrier reef that we were snorkeling in is the 2nd largest in the world. basically it was one of the sweetest things ive ever done. we were swimming with sharks, barracudas, turtles, eels, a billion different kinds of fishes, not to mention the incredible reef itself. absolutely worth it. we couldnt believe how cheap it was. the next day we just chilled and soaked up the sun at this beach on the island called "the split". our hostel was right on the beach, white sand, palm trees, hammocks, the whole deal...pretty ridiculous. everybody that was staying at our hostel was awesome too, its been really fun talking
to everyone and hearing their stories. then thursday we left about midday for punta gorda, spent the night there and then left on a boat for a town called Livingston in guate because we heard from a woman at our hostel in caye caulker that we could take a boat from there up the rio dulce which went through like the jungle of guate to a port town that we could take a bus from there to guatemala city. we chartered a boat for pretty cheap to take us through the jungle and we stopped at these hot springs and caves for a while. then when we got to the port city we got on a bus to guate city which was supposed to be like a 5 or 6 hour ride but it ended up taking like 7 to 8 hours because the bus broke down on the side of the highway like 20 minutes outside of the city. we stood on the side of the road in the dark for like 45 minutes with all of our stuff until another bus picked us up to take us the rest of the way. then we got into guate city at like 10pm and found this little crappy hostel across the street from the bus station for $4 a person and just crashed there cuz we were so tired. then we got up in the morning and took a bus back home to salvador. theres sooo much more stuff that happened in between all that, but thats the rough overview of our adventures. if youre ever in Belize, definitely make it over to the Caye's if you get a chance, it was incredible. i could have hung out there for another 3 weeks and been totally fine.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
``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.
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.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
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!
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!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, February 22, 2008
weekend in juayua
so we had a free weekend and a few of my friends and i decided to go to a little town called Juayua (pronounced why-u-a) and here are some of the adventures we had:
- its like a 2 or 3 hour trip (on 2 buses) and we got there at about 10:30am so when we got off the bus we started to look for a place to stay. we found this cute place called the Mirador thats right on one of the main streets where the market is. we went to our dorm style room to put our stuff down and 2 of my friends went downstairs to try and call a guide for these trails/waterfalls that we heard about. then this boy came up to them and said he could be our guide for the afternoon (we think the staff heard us talking about a guide and called him for us) but it was super random. he said we were leaving in 3 minutes so they came back upstairs and told us to get ready quick and we were off.
- our guide was 13 year old Omar who works as a guide on the weekends. he was awesome and wore sweet shoes so we liked him right away. we followed him on like a 45minute hike through the forest to get to the waterfalls. the first one was gigantic, Omar told us that sometimes people rapel(sp?) down the waterfall which sounded awesome but no one was doing it then. the second one we came to we could swim in. its really hard to describe but the waterfall had like Mayan-looking rock structures that had created like a pool area at the bottom of it so it was a sweet place to swim. we jumped into the pool of crystal blue water and then Omar said that we could jump off the rocks into the water. he went first to show us but he basically scaled the side of the waterfall like 30ft up and then jumped off of this rock that was poking out of the waterfall. of course i was all about that, so i was the first of our group to scale the side and jump in. it was incredible and we got some great pictures from it. the third one we went to was similar to the one before it but to get to the pool of water you could go through this underground tunnel. we followed Omar in this practically pitch black tunnel we could walk through but there was water in it also, at some points up to my chin. the end of the tunnel came out behind the waterfall so we swam through/under it. words cant do the experience justice but it was really sweet.
- we were super tired from the excursion so when we got back to the hotel we ended up taking like a 3 hour nap. we pretty much passed out, ha. then we got up and decided to walk around a bit and find a place to eat dinner. we came across this cute Mexican restaurant that had delicious food, our waitress was adorable, and they were playing Selena...basically an excellent place. then we all wanted to find a bar to chill at or somewhere with music and we heard some playing in the distance to we started to walk toward it. as we got closer we could tell that it was live music so my friend MaryBeth and i started like jumping and dancing in the street until Alexis told us to "be cool. be nonchalant." haha. when we got there we saw a big stage and were so excited for what looked like a live concert. we walked to the back and looked at the stage only to find out that we were standing in the middle of an outdoor Evangelical mass...wah wah. the "concert music" that we were hearing was the christian rock songs being played before the mass started. we were laughing so hard that we almost peed our pants.
- after the slight let down of the fake concert we decided to go to this ice cream place that we spotted earlier in the day that was playing music. we got ice cream but there was no music playing but they did have a jukebox. we picked a couple songs (michael jackson, 50 cent...the usual, haha) and had our own dance party on the porch of the ice cream place with just the 5 of us. then some salvadorans that were looking on put in some money for a couple extra songs too. it was pretty funny.
- sunday morning we woke up early and had breakfast at the rooftop restaurant that was in our hotel. the view was beautiful and the pancakes were delicious. then we packed our stuff up and went to the huge artisan market and food fesival that is held every weekend. so many beautiful things, i bought some sweet sandals and a painted yoyo. then from the food festival i found this incredible veggie sandwich that was muyyyy ricoooo. then we ran into Luiz (the guy who gave me the ring on valentines day that makes jewelry outside the UCA) in the artisan market. we were hanging out with a bunch of rastafarian guys who were making jewelry and i looked to my left and there he was. we both got really excited and hugged and then i was really confused as to why he was there. he apparently goes there a lot because they have a really good market on the weekends. he came up with his brother who is also a artist. he told me where his brother was painting so i went over to say hello but i found that his brother looks nothing like him. Luiz is really skinny with dreads but his brother was like clean shaven, wearing a button up shirt making these beautiful paintings with spray paint. i introduced myself and said that i knew his brother and he said that his name is Hector. his painting are beautiful so i said i loved them but i didnt have any more money with me. he told me to pick one that i liked and i could take it with me right then and give the money to Luiz next time i saw him. I picked a beautiful one of a waterfall with a vibrant red bird in one corner, its hanging in my room right now. He even signed it "para Andrea." we basically hung out with Luiz and the other rastafarians until we left in the afternoon, and he taught us how to make some jewelry. super random to see him there but it was so fun hanging out.
**sidenote: we´re going on a silent retreat this weekend in Guatemala which i´m super excited about. 1)because i´ve never been to Guatemala and i hear the place we´re going is incredible and 2)because im super excited for the challenge of being silent for 2 days. never done it before but im definitely up for the adventure. **
- its like a 2 or 3 hour trip (on 2 buses) and we got there at about 10:30am so when we got off the bus we started to look for a place to stay. we found this cute place called the Mirador thats right on one of the main streets where the market is. we went to our dorm style room to put our stuff down and 2 of my friends went downstairs to try and call a guide for these trails/waterfalls that we heard about. then this boy came up to them and said he could be our guide for the afternoon (we think the staff heard us talking about a guide and called him for us) but it was super random. he said we were leaving in 3 minutes so they came back upstairs and told us to get ready quick and we were off.
- our guide was 13 year old Omar who works as a guide on the weekends. he was awesome and wore sweet shoes so we liked him right away. we followed him on like a 45minute hike through the forest to get to the waterfalls. the first one was gigantic, Omar told us that sometimes people rapel(sp?) down the waterfall which sounded awesome but no one was doing it then. the second one we came to we could swim in. its really hard to describe but the waterfall had like Mayan-looking rock structures that had created like a pool area at the bottom of it so it was a sweet place to swim. we jumped into the pool of crystal blue water and then Omar said that we could jump off the rocks into the water. he went first to show us but he basically scaled the side of the waterfall like 30ft up and then jumped off of this rock that was poking out of the waterfall. of course i was all about that, so i was the first of our group to scale the side and jump in. it was incredible and we got some great pictures from it. the third one we went to was similar to the one before it but to get to the pool of water you could go through this underground tunnel. we followed Omar in this practically pitch black tunnel we could walk through but there was water in it also, at some points up to my chin. the end of the tunnel came out behind the waterfall so we swam through/under it. words cant do the experience justice but it was really sweet.
- we were super tired from the excursion so when we got back to the hotel we ended up taking like a 3 hour nap. we pretty much passed out, ha. then we got up and decided to walk around a bit and find a place to eat dinner. we came across this cute Mexican restaurant that had delicious food, our waitress was adorable, and they were playing Selena...basically an excellent place. then we all wanted to find a bar to chill at or somewhere with music and we heard some playing in the distance to we started to walk toward it. as we got closer we could tell that it was live music so my friend MaryBeth and i started like jumping and dancing in the street until Alexis told us to "be cool. be nonchalant." haha. when we got there we saw a big stage and were so excited for what looked like a live concert. we walked to the back and looked at the stage only to find out that we were standing in the middle of an outdoor Evangelical mass...wah wah. the "concert music" that we were hearing was the christian rock songs being played before the mass started. we were laughing so hard that we almost peed our pants.
- after the slight let down of the fake concert we decided to go to this ice cream place that we spotted earlier in the day that was playing music. we got ice cream but there was no music playing but they did have a jukebox. we picked a couple songs (michael jackson, 50 cent...the usual, haha) and had our own dance party on the porch of the ice cream place with just the 5 of us. then some salvadorans that were looking on put in some money for a couple extra songs too. it was pretty funny.
- sunday morning we woke up early and had breakfast at the rooftop restaurant that was in our hotel. the view was beautiful and the pancakes were delicious. then we packed our stuff up and went to the huge artisan market and food fesival that is held every weekend. so many beautiful things, i bought some sweet sandals and a painted yoyo. then from the food festival i found this incredible veggie sandwich that was muyyyy ricoooo. then we ran into Luiz (the guy who gave me the ring on valentines day that makes jewelry outside the UCA) in the artisan market. we were hanging out with a bunch of rastafarian guys who were making jewelry and i looked to my left and there he was. we both got really excited and hugged and then i was really confused as to why he was there. he apparently goes there a lot because they have a really good market on the weekends. he came up with his brother who is also a artist. he told me where his brother was painting so i went over to say hello but i found that his brother looks nothing like him. Luiz is really skinny with dreads but his brother was like clean shaven, wearing a button up shirt making these beautiful paintings with spray paint. i introduced myself and said that i knew his brother and he said that his name is Hector. his painting are beautiful so i said i loved them but i didnt have any more money with me. he told me to pick one that i liked and i could take it with me right then and give the money to Luiz next time i saw him. I picked a beautiful one of a waterfall with a vibrant red bird in one corner, its hanging in my room right now. He even signed it "para Andrea." we basically hung out with Luiz and the other rastafarians until we left in the afternoon, and he taught us how to make some jewelry. super random to see him there but it was so fun hanging out.
**sidenote: we´re going on a silent retreat this weekend in Guatemala which i´m super excited about. 1)because i´ve never been to Guatemala and i hear the place we´re going is incredible and 2)because im super excited for the challenge of being silent for 2 days. never done it before but im definitely up for the adventure. **
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