bike rides, lasagna, more piñatas

this is my favorite house in xela

last week, me and the doctors went to the guardería (the daycare our school supports for low income kids in a rural community near xela) for the monthly birthday party




the chicken little piñata



total mayhem as three kids emerge crying and trying to grasp onto their lollipops

this is brita and damien, my two pals who had the dinner party a few weeks back. they often come over to play board games with my family. brita is the coordinator of the greenhouse project at the guardería.




some more shots of my little sandwich shop hangout


sometimes the dudes start making a racket with all the instruments lying around




back to my house.. someone hung up some briefs the other day that screamed for a photo op


last friday, our school had an all day bike ride benefit for the greenhouse project. we rode to three indigenous communities in the mountains on these crappy bikes with awful brakes, but it was such an amazing day. my wrists and hands are still hurting two days later from trying to force the brakes to work downhill, but definitely so worth it. this is the first place we got to (can't remember the name!):


the last stop was san andrés xecul, this gorgeous town on a steep slope with a famous yellow church that is on the cover of my lonely planet central america (rana! i found it!). the story goes that during the civil war, the people in this town thought that god was mad at them and so they decided to paint this church and other churches in the town bright colors as some kind of offering. they also have this tradition here where all the young guy virgins whose parents are planning to marry them off during the year have to go live on top of the mountain with the town elders for 40 days where they're instructed on how to be a man, etc, and then during the annual town festival in june, they have to climb this incredibly tall tree in front of this church and then make it across a rope that is connected to the church. this challenge is supposed to represent the challenges of married life, and if you don't make it across, you're not up for the challenge. according to luis, my amazing teacher, no one has ever fallen off the rope.

here is me eating an ice cream sandwich outside this sacred place



yesterday my friend tamar (from brooklyn!) and i took the bus and got a pickup to the hotsprings at fuentes georginas near xela. this is tamar in the back of the pickup


i'm so happy that i finally got a photo of this place. so amazing, full of sulfur and on the edge of this gorgeous mountain.

i don't have any photos of the lasagna i made for my family today, but it was quite the deal! i offered to make them dinner, but then when lunch seemed more appropriate as it is the more elegant meal of the day, decided to do lunch. it was quite a trip washing everything in bleach first but so awesome to get to mess up a kitchen and make something so amazing. we ate outside in their front yard and they totally clapped!

this week we had an excellent conference at school about the civil war here. man. i've watched a lot of movies and read things here and there and obviously heard so many people's experiences, but everything really came together in this lecture. once again, the role of the u.s. disgusts me beyond belief. people here have to live with so much violence and poverty that has been so directly caused by the war and now is further exacerbated by these terrible "free trade" agreements that they have no choice but to sign. i could go on, obviously..

i can't belive i'm coming home in a week.

jesus comes to xela

semana santa, birthday parties, spanish, much more..


i've been running around with this group of gynecologists (!) who are also students at my school. they work in clinics during the day and sometimes we get beers in the nighttime..

wow, i guess two weeks ago now.. it was semana santa, easter week, which is a huge deal in latin america. i went to mass on easter sunday which was awesome. there was standing room only in this gorgeous church that was mostly full of mayan families, including the cutest little girl who made her way to the back where we were and proceeded to crawl around the confessional booth and lift up the skirts of the angel floats that were also standing in the back with us. there were days of processions and here are some photos from the procession of niños in xela:

at each procession they have these alfombras, "carpets" made of flowers, sawdust, puzzles with jesus´ face, fruit, etc.

there are like 75 niños carrying this version of jesus

on sabado santo, the saturday before easter, i went with my family to visit some of their friends in salcajá, this pueblo about 15 minutes outside of xela. they made this amazing lunch of salted fish in a tomato sauce, which was actually amazing, as well as the requisite sweet bread and also some raspberry smoothies and rice and a giant 3.3 liter bottle of coke.

here are some shots of the procession-preparation in salcaja. then my camera ran out of batteries.

this last saturday night was my brother pablo's 22nd birthday. it was a really big deal and all his friends from guatemala city came up and they rented enormous speakers for the front yard. my host parents were terrified ahead of time but it all worked out fine. this is tofi:

and maria eugenia, my host mom.

this is amanda, the coolest girl i've met on my trip. she went to wesleyan, surely you all know her?

this is pablo on the right and his bff andrés who is always at the house

this is cique, short for enrique, my host dad. he's amazing.

they are this old-money xela family that has fallen on hard times. the dad's been out of work for three years and it's obvious that they are used to a much higher standard of living than what's going on now.

then all the 22 year olds busted out the acoustic guitars, sang happy birthday to pablo and sang their best versions of oasis songs and probably the deftones or whatever bands like that sound like. it was adorable.

and, some xela shots, post-rain

the most romantic bridge in town

and.. the grocery store near the parque central. they were showing bad education at this cafe last night and i went to meet the gynecologists after some good studying.

this is the sandwich shop where i hang out:

and this is cafe la luna, the best place to study and drink hot chocolate

this is emily (gynecologist!) hard at work on her sex ed pamphlet

ok, so.. get your orders in for all the fake puma gear or armani sunglasses you'd like.. i'm coming home soon!

xela's been amazing.

i have gotten to live in this place where people kiss hello, even people they don't know. every morning i eat an egg, usually fried, with a big spoonful of refried black beans and then a bowl of papaya and banana with granola on top and fresh squeezed orange juice. everyone comes home for lunch, and the guy who works next door at the cheese tienda, dennis, joins us most of the time too. i'm trying to get through my first stab at reading gabriel garcia márquez in spanish. my school has all these development projects going on, including this stove project in rural homes and a greenhouse project at their daycare center in this rural community about 20 minutes outside of xela near the base of the volcano. a few weeks ago i went out there and we climbed up the mountain to collect pine trees. perhaps i already wrote about this, but there were a bunch of kids from the guardería, the daycare, there, ranging in age from 4 to 13 and mostly all carrying machetes up this mountain.

alright, i am very late for a conference at school. see y'all soon! xoxo