The Journal

Who's teaching who?

2008-04-25T11:32:00.003-04:00

Although my days can be filled on a daily basis by teaching English almost whenever I want (literally I have both students and teachers from the morning and afternoon asking when I might be stopping in their class), I have stuck to teaching in the afternoon with the middle/high school kids. It's been a lot of work I finished grading over 160 tests and compiling the final grades for all of those students (and that's just middle school). However I had asked to do that so I could begin to learn some of the names of the students and so that I could gain a better grasp on how the tests I created for the students went for them. I found several areas that I can help them with for the following tests and although excitement is there I am quite happy to have a little break. The system used here is different that what I am accustomed to as they use a scale of 5-10 for grading, 5 being failing (or just passing) and 10 being like an A.

It has also been an educational experience for me every day in the classroom, with consistent reminders from the teachers and students about my pronunciation or just complete bewilderment as to what I am trying to explain. Nonetheless I ask for the feedback to help both me and the students gain more understanding. Obviously my Spanish background is not that same as what they learned so we need to meet somewhere in-between. Daily frustration is common, although I generally look foreword to the obstacles I encounter with optimism and have found my patience growing. That said I have grown attached to the students for their effort, energy, and growth they have already shown during the first few months (the school year starts in January). While English is the subject we spend time with in class, I have told the students that what I am really trying to do is encourage independent thinking. Hopefully we can accomplish some of that and learn from each other during my time here.

Selling God?

2008-03-28T10:24:00.002-04:00

While riding the bus here in El Salvador, one can experience many things: loud ranchera music (or english songs from the 80s) blasting in your ear; the regular beggars that tug at your heart-strings with their sad stories and appearances; people trying to sell you everything from food, toys for children, or vitamins that can ¨save your life¨ (along with every possible thing you can think of, in fact that could be a blog entry in itself); and finally what this entry is all about deeply zealous religious people trying to save your soul.

Recently we experienced a 2 hour bus ride to our community where 3 nuns and a minister boarded with a mission. Their mission, as they told us, was to use this time to share to us the Glory of God, Alleluia. The trip began with some brief speeches about why we needed saving and we are all sinners who have no hope without the belief of God in our lives. From there they mixed in some songs which were all sung with the support of an electric portable speaker, although none of them sung very well. Throughout this time the rest of the people on the bus went along their business not really paying to much attention those pleading with us to ¨connect to God¨ right now, and not let another moment pass us by.

I found myself interested with what they had to say, because as a non-Christian who has found much more of a spiritual connection with meditation and Buddhist teachings, I was curious how they would discuss other spiritual beliefs. Yet not surprisingly I found what they had to say limiting and pinpointing a one-dimensional directional path to God. The group may have sensed the disinterest on the bus and felt they needed to take a quite frequently practiced bad parenting approach… ¨If they don’t seem to hear you, TALK LOUDER!¨ When the bus started to fill up and people standing had no room to move the group, who had positioned themselves early on in the ride toward the middle of the bus, brought out a mega-phone or loudspeaker normally used outside at large gatherings. Only a few feet away from us and right next to some people on the bus they began to sing, preach, and cry out stories of pain and punishment they had received and how turning to God had saved them.

I really have endured many a loud music bus but the sound of a mega-phone on a stripped down bus (which really has nothing more than metal that the sound reverberates off) of was deafening. I had my fingers in my ears as did many of the Salvadorans (which I had never seen before). I told Melissa I think I need to tell them that if they don’t cover up the loudspeaker with a shirt or something to dull the sound, they might find many of God’s children deaf from their own message. However a older Salvadoran man beat me to the punch to ask them not to use the mega-phone, which is a big deal many Salvadorans are genuinely to polite at the cost of their ears or other discomforts. Nonetheless he was blown off by the group much to the chagrin of myself and other passengers who asked him of their response.

Our stop couldn’t come quick enough that day and we found ourselves talking with a Salvadoran along our walk about the frequency of these experiences. We have encountered evangelicals before, and in fact I have close evangelical friends both here in El Salvador and in the US, yet my concern is how religion was being ¨sold¨ on that bus much like other commercial items. People have also come house to house in our community selling everything from kitchen needs, towels, and pictures often in the name of God or some other religious sect. I have spoken to several evangelicals as they have passed by our community in large groups visiting each house talking to anyone who will listen about God. I experienced this before in the states but to me it seems even more connected to commercialism here in El Salvador.

Top 10 reasons outdoor showers are better

2008-03-27T12:34:00.000-04:00

10. There’s no echo when you sing

9. The beautiful views

8. You can clean your flip-flops at the same time

7. You can talk to your neighbors while bathing

6. If you shower at night you can look at the stars

5. You can get a tan while you shower

4. You can clean dishes while you shower

3. Don’t waste as much water

2. The sun and the wind dry you off before you can grab your towel

1. If you need to go to the bathroom, you don’t have to go far

Getting back to simplicity

2008-03-20T14:33:00.002-04:00

At many times in our lives we can feel ¨off¨ or unbalanced which often speaks of a need for refocusing in order to reenergize ourselves. Melissa and I had been feeling this way for quite some time now, at least dating back to sometime last October, for a variety of reasons. We had spent a good amount of time with family between November and January which was the good stuff, and we also have been sick on and off (most on for me) in addition with extending our temporary residency both of which have brought us back to the city more times than we would have liked. Interruptions in our routine as well as the inability to create new routines for ourselves have bubbled into feelings of ¨what am I doing here¨ and ¨am I valuable?¨. When we look at these questions through the lenses of accomplishments the answers can be pretty grim. Yet when we refocus and look at ourselves in terms of positive relationships developed and other non-measurable evolutions that have taken place within ourselves and the community we begin to see our place and our value.

It has gone without saying for me that I have tried for the last several years to simplify my life in terms of materialism and needs both with and without success. Melissa has also jumped onboard this journey with me and together we are proud to say that we feel the journey is worth more than the arrival. The fact is that we are continually ready to adjust our lifestyles so that we will improve our ability to support, help, and connect with the poor in this world. I had mentioned before that we have been keeping track of our daily spending because 1) we don’t receive a lot and need to spend it wisely and 2) we have felt it is important to feel what the struggle of families who are living on minimum wage or less. During this last month we cut down our spending to nearly 12 dollars a day between the two of us (That includes all spending: food, transportation, water, electricity, cleaning supplies, money to call home or in using computers, and other desired goods.) A smart person could say that we were just living off of all the food our parents had brought to fatten us up, yet one cannot live on peanut butter and chocolate alone… or can they?

Jokes aside how we spend our money is only a small part of simplicity, other areas really have do with practicing compassion both within ourselves and towards others. We have a tendency to complicate our lives even here in El Salvador, so I am reminded of the words from the Dhammapada, a collection of important teachings from the Buddha:

Live in Joy

Live in Joy, In love,
Even among those who hate.

Live in joy, In health,
Even among the afflicted.

Live in joy, In peace,
Even among the troubled.

Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.

~

There is no fire like greed,
No crime like hatred,
No sorrow like separation,
No sickness like hunger of heart,
And no joy like the joy of freedom.

Health, contentment and trust
Are your greatest possessions,
And freedom your greatest joy.

Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.

Good times! (in January)

2008-02-29T11:21:00.001-05:00

How quickly time passes! Another apology is due for the lack of blog writing….this one is a little overdue!!

January was full of activity as we spent time with our families, who made the trip out here to El Salvador to see what we are up to. Tom’s mom and aunt arrived on January 17^th, the day before the arrival of my dad and brother. While Tom and I went to the airport to pick up Jude and Wes, Marge and Jeanie got to spend the day in San Salvador, touring some of the historical parts with Sue (who is a ball of energy). Wes and Jude arrived in San Salvador on time, Jude was dressed in pants and a long-sleeve shirt, which he immediately took off, because he realized it would be a hot week in El Salvador. We climbed into the double cab Datsun pick-up that belongs to CRISPAZ, tied down the luggage and were off to go. We hadn’t even left the parking lot and they were thinking about taking pictures. The ride to the office was filled with chit-chat, questions and amazement.

Once at the office we did the proper introductions, tour of the office, picked up Marge and Jeanie, repacked and we were off. We spent the first four days of the trip in our community. We did lots of visiting with our old host-family, ate Quesadillas at Esperanza´s house; (the lady who makes the Quesadillas, which were a big hit), played softball a couple of times, Luis and Tita played some live ranchero music for us, Wes got drunk at the Cuban Bar in Suchitoto and Jeanie almost got married, took a bus to San Martin (which Jude and Wes couldn’t stop talking about for days, in fact it was Wes’ highlight for the trip), shopped in the market, and of course toured the clinic and the school.

We crammed a lot of stiff within a few days and probably could have used more time for everything, but we needed to move on to different parts of the country. We then went to Joya de Ceren, an archeological site that was accidentally discovered in 1976, from there we moved east. We ended up staying in San Vicente, a larger town with very strange hotel options that will not be mentioned in this blog. In the morning we headed to the Pacific Ocean and El Espino beach. It is in our opinion the most beautiful beach in El Salvador. We arrived on Wed and only had 2 days left before Jude and Wes were due to fly out. We enjoyed the time we had at the beach, relaxed, drank some beer and did some swimming.

After my side of the family left we spent a couple of more days in El Salvador before traveling to Antigua, Guatemala. We had four days with great food, shopping and relaxing while we were there. Tom and Jeanie did extreme cables while we visited Panajachel and had a blast. After our time in Antigua we sent Jeanie and Marge on their way and we headed back home to El Salvador.

The trip went by rather quick, but we were glad to share this experience with our family. We hope that they will want to come back and visit us again!!!

Picture Page

2008-01-09T14:36:00.000-05:00

Picture page
It's picture page
It's time for Tom and Melissa's picture page
It's time to bring your mouse and your keyboard

Picture page
It's picture page
It's time for Tom and Melissa's picture page
It's time for Tom and Melissa to share their picture page with you!

www.rhubarbdessert.com/gallery

(from Bill Cosby's picture page song for those of you old enough to remember it)

We have put together a family website with the help of Tom's brother Tony and you may view updated pictures of us and our community at least monthly, sometimes more often.

www.rhubarbdessert.com/gallery

Bienvenidas/os Santa Cruz Delegation y Que les vaya bien!

2008-01-09T13:30:00.000-05:00

New Years was spent on a different level, Tom got sick with parasites a few days before so he was on medication and his body was physically exhausted. Therefore Tom was in bed by 9pm while I was again at the Arili´s house for the dance (yes another dance), however it just wasn't the same without Tom so I went home rather early. We were in bed by 11:30 and that's how we spent the New Years. A group of our neighbors from the community however used the still brilliant light from the moon to walk to each of the communities singing songs all night long, some of them did not sleep at all that night.

The day before New Years a delegation from Lutheran and Presbyterian churches in Santa Cruz, CA arrived in our community. We had heard lots about this group from various people in our community and we were excited to meet a group who had been coming to our community for the past 10 years. They were scheduled to eat breakfast everyday at Arili’s the week they were in the community. So every morning Tom and I would wake up bright and early to help Arili serve breakfast for the 22 people (21 + the interpreter Brenda). Unlike other delegations that have come through our community this group spent a majority of a week in the Ciudadela, giving them time to connect with many people, including ourselves. We found that we were not only helping with breakfast but also trying to spend time with them during the day. Throughout the week we noticed from their strong presence in the community that we had much to learn from them. Those who have been coming for years have developed very close relationships with people from our community.

This particular delegation supports AMUDESCO, particularly paying the salary of the doctor and the health promoters for the majority of the year, if not all. Without this group from Santa Cruz I don’t know financially where the clinic would be. They also support the school, providing scholarships that include school supplies and uniforms for a number of students. Recently they also have started supporting some of the graduates to continue to study in college. Needless to say, we had a fantastic week with them; they left us with a lot of inspiration, hope and energy to continue the work that we do.

As I finish this long rambling blog, I hope I am not boring too many of you. I hope that many of you are able to connect with an organization, church, or start a group of your own, to see what role you can play in the developing countries that most need your help. The options are as limitless as your ambitions, and for those of you interested more in Santa Cruz you may visit the following link:

http://www.santacruzalsalvador.org/

Posted by Melissa and Tom

Christmas tiddings (and writings)

2008-01-07T13:06:00.000-05:00

This Christmas we enjoyed in our community with close friends and people who are practically family. We were invited to 2 celebrations on the 24th and 2 on the 25th. The 24th was spent eating lunch at Arili and Mauricio's with all of their immediate and some more distant family. In all we were around 25 people, many of whom we knew well from the Ciudadela, but all of which we spent some time chatting with throughout the afternoon. The picture shows Arili, Claudia, and Alexander (two of her children). Supper was a date at Luis and Wilma´s (Luis who teaches Tom guitar and Wilma (his wife) is a member of AMUDESCO with Melissa), and the two children of Wilma and her father. We had visited them before and enjoyed returning as they all have a little spunk and plenty of energy. We walked home that near full moon night to join in the DJ dance at Arili and Mauricio's. The 25^th (which here in

El Salvador

is not celebrated as much as the 24^th) was spent visiting a few neighbors in the morning and the family of Nena (Gloria’s oldest daughter) and her family in the afternoon, eating nearly everywhere we went. For both of us this was our first Christmas away from family and friends, whom we did miss terribly, and unfortunately the season just didn’t feel the same. Nonetheless we felt content in our environment and were happy to be able to celebrate with other families to experience holidays here. But oh how I miss those Christmas goodies!! I went the whole season without gaining a pound….now that is sad.

We baked banana bread and gave those loaves to 13 families who live near us, or with those whom we’ve developed special relationships. We hope that the small gift we were able to give warmed their hearts in the way they have welcomed and warmed a place in ours. We received many warm thanks and grateful responses but hoped that they felt our appreciation for each of them that is sometimes difficult to express. A interesting difference to us was that none of the families we visited placed presents under trees and many of them did not exchange presents at all. While lack of money is certainly part of a reason for this fact, those that we visited seemed to look foreword to certain foods and family time as well. We understand that air in our community had a different spirit of Christmas feeling to it. One that at times seemed to be expressed in a sad pause of realizing this day was as much of a struggle as any other.

One such example was that upon arriving we learned that Nena was not able to celebrate Christmas due to no money for gifts, food etc.. We invited Nena, Walter, Gabby, Juan Carlos and Carolina to have lunch at our house a few days after Christmas. It was eminent how appreciative they were of the meal we had given them (pasta, chicken nuggets and garlic bread) and stated that they had not had that variety of food in a long time. So, giving them a variety from their typical beans and rice was our Christmas present to them and their happiness and appreciation was their offering to share with us.

Our christmas coffee tree

Posted by Melissa and Tom

November Rain and December Travels

2007-12-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

Our apologies to our friends and family that we have not written in quite some time, but we are writting today, yey! In summery November was full of celebrations and activities for us including baptism/confirmation, birthdays, the aniversary of our comunity, buying a refrigerator, end of the year volunteer retreats, and many other visits within our community. Perhaps the biggest news of this past month was that we became god-parents to not one but two girls within Gloria's family, her youngest daughter Ana and Carolina her grandchild. This was a great experence and although neither daughter really knew what they were experiencing with baptism (Carolina) and confirmation (Ana) it opens the door for their own spiritual journey (where-ever the road will lead). The aniversary of the community was a big and great event that we were glad to be a part of. From a soccer tournament, ferris wheel (with a much faster speed limit than any I've ever ridden, but Melissa was brave enough to ride), games and rides for kids, and a big dance that night in which we were too cheap to pay the 2 dollar cover... the place was rockin and a large part of the community was there.

There were strange events as well such as rain during a month in which it normally doesn't and hot, hot weather when it was supposed to be cold. These thoughts can only allow oneself to wonder about the effects of global warming and how it may be changing climates all over the world. Hopefully not adding to that problem was our exciting news of purchasing a used refrigerator. The cost of electric appliances here is more expensive than in the states and way out of our comfort range but we really had no choice. We were not able to continue traveling 3 or 4 times a week to purchase vegetables or other food and having no place for leftovers. Hopefully we will not have any problems with it, as it is used, and can enjoy a little cold milk with cereal, YUM!

A more personal note we have continued connecting with our community and the lack of school has really slowed down the pace of life. Many of the boys have been working the fields (or ¨milpas¨) since school ended and the next school year isn't far away (mid- January). We were glad to use this time to connect more to the people in our community and trying to be patient in finding our place. The language has been a roller-coaster ride and the patience we find within our community has been great. We also took this month to keep track of our expenses in part for goal that we have of cutting ourselves down to what people in our community can afford. Our goal in Feburary will be to cut ourselves down to the minimum salary here in El Salvador which we will tell you more about in the months to come. Since we spent some time here in December seeing Honduras and seeing my brother in Guatemala, my mother and aunt as well as Melissa's father and brother will be coming to see us in January; we may have to wait until Feburary or March to begin our change in lifestyles of living on little.

We would like to close with wishing you all a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year. We thank you all for your continued support.

-posted by Tom

Hit n run

2007-11-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago Tom, myself, and 8 other people from our organization were out eating dinner at a restaurant. It was a dark and misty evening and as we were finishing with our meal we heard the sound of tires squealing, a large thud and saw a truck driving away. I immediately thought that the truck that drove away hit one of the parked cars on the street. Then some of our team members realized that there was a man laying in the street, all of us then realizing that it indeed was a hit and run. We all sat stoic for a few moments, at this one of the other person’s from our organization (Tedde) asked if we should go over there, to which I replied yes. So, we proceeded towards the body, at the time we were thinking he was dead, however he soon started moving his limbs. Tedde started talking to him while I was directing traffic. She was encouraging the man not to move, however one of the other bystanders insisted that he be moved from the street, at which time he picked him up, not graciously, almost dropped him and proceeded to bring him to the sidewalk. As many of you are probably familiar that you are NOT supposed to move a person/body after a serious injury, obviously that is not the case here in this country. During this time Tom and one of the other members of our group had run down the street looking for the police station. After asking several people and getting responses of just down the street they arrived at the police station almost a mile away. Upon entering they found that the call had been received and the police were ¨on their way¨. When they began walking back they saw the police truck driving down the road towards the accident. When the police arrived their first and only question to people around was "Is he drunk?". The man who carried him before again carried him to the police vehicle (a short-bed pickup truck), he was put in the back along with the man who carried him to the truck, and proceeded to what we all assumed would be the hospital. We were all (the northamericans) amazed at the lack of professionalism, with no questions asked in regards to the other vehicle, etc. It really felt like it was clean it up, get em out and maybe we will ask questions later. Unfortunately, the Salvadorans had stated that this is a normal occurrence here in this country.

Thirty minutes later as we were heading back to the office in our company vehicle, Tedde (who was driving) suddenly slammed on the brakes. We then saw the same man who had been hit and taken away by the police was walking up the hill towards where he was hit. Obviously, he had not been taking to the hospital and was just dropped off away from the scene of the crime. We were completely in shock (again) of how this situation was handled, yet sadly enough the Salvadorans with us told us that events such as these can happen quite often.

Independence Day (yes, over a month late...)

2007-10-19T18:17:00.000-04:00

Although these last couple of posts are a little late they are nonetheless very important at least when talking about our community celebrations. Independence Day (Sept. 15th) was before AMUDESCO's celebration but Melissa was on the ball and wrote hers before mine. On Independence day a HUGE celebration was put on in Suchitoto with over 8 of the nearby schools walking in the parade and I believe 4 bands (including one from our community) that played with judging done on that day as well. That said this post will be more pictures that writing as we were very proud of our community that day (including many other parents as well) so we took a bunch of pictures.

The whole school was involved and the pictures above show the many many youth (many of whom know me from class) who marched in the event. At first I had thought that the youth were separated by gender based on some of the conservative nature of the school, however all of the schools followed so the tradition seems to be rooted much deeper than that.

Ana and Fatima were also in the parade. Ana danced with the girls up front but I hadn't seen her
practice during the weeks before so many times she was often lost but good for her for trying! Fatima played in the band and was a steel woman of concentration throughout the event. She really did well and kept great form throughout a rather long parade.

At several points in the parade the band split and did marching formations, from 2 rows to 4, weaving a letter S on the street, and of course different rhythms which changed how they played their instruments in sync with each other.

Overall it was a great day that the kids worked really hard for and hopefully take back a lot of pride in the process.

- Posted by Tom

Community Celebration

2007-10-19T17:04:00.001-04:00

On Sept 30 AMUDESCO, an organization that works on women’s community development and whom I work with, celebrated their 8 year anniversary. To celebrate it was decided to serve lunch and have a day of activities to all of the associates of AMUDESCO (approximately 50 people). The day before Gloria, Alba, Ariceli and myself went off to San Martin in order to buy what was necessary for the following day. We left with about 200.00 (which was funded by a supporting organization) and a list of A LOT of stuff to buy. We divided the money between the four of us, so one person wouldn’t have to be responsible for that much money. We arrived at San Martin bright and early, deciding to go buy the meat first since the best pick of meat was usually in the am. I don’t especially like meat markets, they way they smell, the fleshy meat just hanging there with swarms of flies buzzing on them, this time I even saw some meat on the tin roof, I imagine it was drying. Aside from the regular beef, pork and chicken, they also had cow’s hearts, chicken feet, cow hooves and a pieces of skin that reminded me of furry carpet. We bought our 39 pounds of beef and continued from there.

Throughout the market we continued to buy carrots, onions, rice, green peppers, tomatoes, 50 plates, 50 cups and many other various items. At some point after buying the beef and starting to buy everything else the other women decided to give me the rest of the money they had and pursued to call me their treasurer. When we walked through the market the others would flock in different directions and then call me over to give them money, it was a little confusing at first but rather comical. After all I was probably the most likely target to get robbed (being a foreigner), I took it as a comfort that they didn’t even think about that. We finished our shopping in about 2.5 hours, then had some lunch, bought a ride back to our community for $8 (we had arrived by bus) with our 100 pounds of goods that we bought.

The following day we all started off early, 8am, some a little earlier, decorated, cooked, and cleaned in order to get ready for the party. People started arriving around 9:30am, Gloria later put up the schedule (which she made me write out), of the activities which were supposed to start at 9, didn’t start until 11:30. Well once again, welcome to El Salvador. So, Gloria´s program that was supposed to last for 3 hours, she did it in about 45 minutes.

About 50 adults and 55 children showed up for the festivities so we all chowed down on the food in celebration of AMUDESCO. And who can really turn down a free meal??

-Posted by Melissa

2007-10-13T17:51:00.000-04:00

One of the best parts about being here is having an abundant supply of fruits. There are fruits here that I had no clue existed and ohhh they are delicious. One of my new favorites is a called the lecha fruit. It looks kindof disgusting but it is so sweet inside...yummy!! I haven't found any I can pick off of a tree so I usually buy them in the market. They are somewhat expensive, 7 for .25 or 25 for 1.00. But, to me they are worth it!! However, I am waiting patiently for the mango season to start again.

Saturdays have turned out to be our traditional pupusa night at Arily´s. Every Saturday she sets up to make and sell pupusas to whoever wants to buy them for .25 a piece. This pupusa making night, which she started 2 years ago, starts at 3pm and ends sometime around 7pm. I asked Ari how much money she makes each Saturday, she replied ¨$50 total, but I spend $25 in supplies.¨ Wow! A 25.00 profit in 4 hours, for a Salvadoran woman this is an incredible feat. Tom and I have been faithful, or at least when we are in the community, to show up to have our weekly dose of pupusas. I have recently become a little concerned about how many calories are in a given pupusa, when I ask this question to the native Salvadoran's they say they have no idea, but they imagine there would be alot. Yikes!! So, I have been trying to limit myself to only 2 pupusa's each Saturday, but I could easily pack away 3, possibly even four.

-posted by Melissa

more privacy and less scorpions.....life couldn't get any better

2007-09-26T16:42:00.000-04:00

We have really come to like that fact that we have privacy in our house. And having lights!! What a treat! Above is a photo of our bedroom after we had finished painting. We have only found 3 scorpions in total, to this I am extrememly happy about. We do have a random assortment of other insects, but have become more and more accostomed to them. Our neighborhood is plump full of children, so we usually end up having at least 1 or 2 visit on a daily basis and sometimes up to 5. However, at times we feel a little awkward because they don't do too much to start up conversation, they are perfectly fine with sitting and watching us doing whatever we are doing.

The doctor that works in the clinic is back, for those of you who didn't know, funds ran out at the clinic so they we not able to have a doctor for about 2 weeks. The community and the doctor were thinking, due to the funds, she wouldn't return until January so needless to say everyone is pretty happy that she is back. Last week was her first week back, last Wednesday 3 people told her she got fat. I don't care what people say about this being a complement in Central America, it sure didn't seem like one. Especially when the dentist (who visits about twice a year) asked her if she was on a diet!!

Tom and I were invited to have lunch at Gloria last Sunday (Saturday was Ana's birthday). We were able to hang-out with the family, which is something we definately miss. While Tom was helping make tortilla's and I was watching (I didn't feel like practicing this day), Gloria asked us if we would be Ana's godparents! We were both a little shocked at the question, but gladly accepted. Later while we were eating lunch (rice and beans) Gloria told me ¨at least you know what kind of a torment she can be, so it won't be a shock¨ We all laughed at this....including Ana (pictured on the left).

Here is another photo taken this past Sunday. We were all playing UNO, Gloria had a very hard time with this game!!

-posted by Melissa
*the next entry is a new one by Thomas....so read on

Learning new things

2007-09-26T15:32:00.001-04:00

While I reciently found out that I still have some eggs of amboeas left inside me and will be taking more medication for the next 9 days it's nice to be back in ¨el campo¨. Below is a story I would like to share:

A few days after my birthday I decided to take on the responsiblity to put up plastic walls (basically) to create a more private showering area. Our pila is located right in front of our house and we have a good amount of neighbors that come by thus necessating privacy for bathing. (See pictures) I spent a good amount of the morning looking through our yard for long branches and with a machete cut and trimmed them to use for wrapping the plastic around. I also trimmed the grass around the pila as it was quite long. All of this took me about an hour as I needed to barrow a machete from our neighbor. After lunch I told Mauricio that I was going to put up the plastic and asked if I could barrow a shovel. Although he had just finished showering and had a meeting to go to he told me let´s go do it together.

When he arrived at the house he asked if I had a post-hole digger, since I didn't know what that word was in spanish I had not so he asked the neighbor (which at this point I suspected had quite a lot of tools) if we could barrow theirs. When he looked at my branches/poles he quickly decided that they were too small and told me to start with the holes and he would come back. After I had finished two of the holes he returned with three 8-10 foot trunks that were each individually quite heavy. (Now something equally as noteworthy is that Mauricio only has one arm as his right was amputated during the war.) Quickly, as Mauricio had a meeting to get to however nonetheless insisted he could stay and help until the end, we finished with the holes, put in the new branches, cut the long plastic to stretch around the poles, cut cardboard to use with nails to attatch the plastic to the poles (I was just going to use Duct Tape), and nailed the plastic on (which turned out to be much better as we could stretch the plastic tighter) in probably the next 10 minutes.

I still had questions as we had two open spaces left, a smaller one by the house and the second leading into the pila. I was able to figure out that we could use a plastic shower type curtain in front but the spot by the house still troubled me. Without really speaking Mauricio understood what I was thinking and we both looked at a piece of aluminum roofing that was removed a week earier from our house. The piece was much too long to fit but in a blink of an eye he found a stick, put on top of the aluminum, bent the aluminum over it and placed it perfectly into the open space.

This quick action that might have taken me 20 minutes to process/figure out and I couldn't help but marvel at this rapid action for various reasons. One, this isn't the first time he found things lying around to use for building purposes; when we were working on the pila before we left for the states he grabbed old sandel to smooth out the cement finish on the washing top of the pila. Two, how quickly we finished a project that I had taken an embarassing hour to do simple steps. I've found myself having to set my pride aside in our house projects as I have more to learn from the people like Mauricio here. The third was the humbling nature that he has continued to help us out with our house. The branches/trunks were probably from his house which he gave away, he had just taken a shower and was drenched in sweat from the work, and he was in the end late for his meeting. These interactions continuously occur with our friends and neighbors often leaving us with insuficiente vocabulary to voice our thanks. We only hope that one day we can return the good will that we have recieved.

-Posted by Tom

Getting re-acquainted

2007-09-18T18:09:00.000-04:00

Although the amoebas knocked me out a little over a week ago we finially decided to leave back for our community this last Monday. During our week long stay in the city Melissa was running around continuosly for me making sure I was eating and drinking since the medicine had left me feeling nauseated. The days of school I missed last week due to sickness we found actually were cancelled due to extreme rainy weather caused by Hurricane Felix. So all the work Melissa and I did to get messages to school (since we didn't know the phone number) turned out to be for naught. Once we got to our community I was pretty exhausted and spent most of my birthday (the 11th) in bed resting but by the afternoon I started to regain my strength. It has been good to be back in the community this past week and I feel that just by being there I am regaining some energy and peace of mind.

We just recently brought a few more house items that we are both borrowing and a couple of larger items purchased yesterday to help organize our house. Up until now we have been living out of a couple of suitcases that we need to consistantly keep closed due to spiders, huge crickets, giant moths, cockroaches, mosquitos, tailless whip scorpions, mice, snakes, the occasional chicken, and of course the ever present scorpions themselves. I told Melissa recently that I may develop Shirley's (my sister-in-law) habit of constantly cleaning as it seems to be necessary to keep a house at least temporarily free of insects and rodents. The concerns of cleaning our house stem from not only a health perspective but from a ¨these bugs freak me out¨point of view as well. For Melissa it's scorpions and spiders and I find myself really bothered by the large moths and mice. So far we haven't seen any mice but then we haven't had left any food out of containers yet either, and hopefully neither will change any time soon.

We are slowly getting more involved with our responsibilities in the community. I will be putting together a planning meeting with the youth of our community and hopefully be supporting more of the youth groups of the community than I have been. Contacts are being made and the future looks excitingly different for me with the end of the school year in sight (the school year here runs from around January to Novemeber). Melissa continues to have a busy schedule with the women's group, AMUDESCO, and the meetings were aplenty once she returned. She also is going to utilize her connection with the Casa de Mujeres to start teaching English to a group of women in nearby in Suchitoto.

Stay tunned, stories soon to come!
-posted by Tom

Lazy Dayz

2007-09-09T22:37:00.000-04:00

Well, this past week was spent in San Salvador so Tom could get better while having amoebas. The trip to the doctor went well (besides Tom having amoebas), the clinic that we went to was rather fast, we were in and out within 35 minutes. The doctor that attended to Tom, was very thorough, he actually studied in Japan, receiving a degree in ¨Japanese study and other Japanese things¨, yes it actually said this on the degree….I laughed. The medicine has basically put Tom on hold, as he frequently feels nauseated, but not able to vomit, constant headaches, fatigue, etc. So, that left me spending my time doctoring Tom, taking him to the doctor, getting medication, several runs to the grocery store for specific foods, laundry, reading, playing on the computer, and doing other tedious things. Yes, I love Tom, but I don’t think I could handle him like this all the time….sorry Tom.

Yesterday was somewhat constructive for me, I met some of the women in our community for a meeting that was taking place here in the city. I was told to be at IMU (an organization we work with) at 7:30 am, so I went to IMU at 7:30 am for this meeting that was to take place. Time slowly drifted by, the women from our community showed up around 8:30, we ate breakfast and waiting for our ride to come to take us to a larger location (there were 25 women in total, including women from other departments in El Salvador). Time continued to drift by, but finally at 11:15 our ride was there to pick us up!! Yahoo! Everyone was making a joke that we will have just enough time to eat and then go home. Well, it was close to that, we meet for about an hour and a half, then we ate, then we went home. Oh, how I love meetings in El Salvador. This meeting was a little out of the norm, however it is normal to start a meeting at least an hour behind schedule. It was still great to go, I was able to practice some Spanish (as I did very little during the week), caught up with a couple of women I meet in July, and learned some more Salvadoran slang. So, I guess it was worth it.

Well, we are heading out to our community tomorrow, hopefully Tom’s stomach will treat him well.

-posted by Melissa

Finally

2007-09-04T20:02:00.000-04:00

Here it is our next post...

Since the last time we wrote a lot has happened but for those of you who have a shorter attention spam (like I do) we will sum up. The first part of July was filled with a protest about water privatization near our small community that ended up with 13 people arrested. I (Tom) nearly accidentally ran into this ugly scene but to cover more on this issue is at least a blog entry or two. The incident is a continuing story and for those interested there is information aplenty including on our organization's website.

Additionally we packed away our things in July, came back to Minnesota (and a side trip to Wisconsin for me) and had a wonderful 5 weeks visiting friends and family, returned to E.S. at the end of August, moved to a different room here in the office, moved to a new house in the country and presently I have amoebas once again. Oh yeah, and most importantly we got engaged! While back in the states Melissa proposed to me and we will probably be planning for a wedding sometime near September of 2009, once we return from Central America.

Many exciting things happened however I believe the break from the blogsite was needed so that we could focus on getting things organized before we left for the states, being present and capitalizing on the little time we had with loved one's in MN, and then returning and moving to our new home.

For those of you who didn't know we had found an abandoned house in the country that had running water, tiled floor, electricity, and a good roof (or at least the capacity for all of that). Since we found the house we have done a lot of fix up work which would include: cleaning the entire house inside and out, cleaning our outhouse, painting the inside with 2 coats of paint, fixing the electricity and lights, putting up a clothesline, and many more miscellaneous things (and most of that was in the last week). Now honestly we got a LOT of help from Mauricio (who helped us find the house and talked to the owner for us) and neighbors. It's really great to see how welcoming they are to us and we are excited to be closer to work (we are now both less than two city blocks away from the clinic and the school).

Although it was sad to move away from Gloria and her family we of course will continue to visit and some of the kids will take turns staying with us (including Ana this weekend). We gave out some gifts to Gloria, Nena, Fatima, Walter, Juan Carlos, Gabby, Ana, and Carolina this past Sunday when we had lunch with all of them. They were so greatful and excited about their presents and we felt so welcomed to be back not only with them but to the community as well.

As for me, my amoebas are getting better but to be sure we are taking one extra day in the city before returning to toilets that are a little farther away. Thanks to all who continue to take the time to read about us.

-posted by Tom

Some hard things

2007-06-30T14:10:00.000-04:00

Daily we continue to learn about the struggles of the people here in El Salvador and recently for me some of the stories we hear about have become reality. While the majority of our experience here has been wonderful and inspirational for us as well there are things we learn that just plain makes us sad, since we are in a poor position to change the reality of life here.

We have heard that between 600 and 700 Salvadorians leave for the U.S. per day (that's right per day). Recently two intelligent individuals that I have come to know have done just that, leave for the U.S. A mountain of feelings overwelhem me with this news as it is sad to know that so few jobs exist here to keep young men and women here in the country (as many who leave are young). Having read about so many leaving is obviously different than knowing them, and from my perspective I will probably see many more follow in the footsteps of those who have left before them.

I'd rather not get into the politics of this situation as the feelings of sadness are much more present at this time. I have now visited communities on both ends of the situation with poverty and wealth yet the situation remains the same, no opportunities for consistant work for a majority of the community. People sit in their houses and the differiences is how much ¨stuff¨ the have around them. The wealthy communities that I have visited are recieving hundreds of thousands of dollars from family they have in the US. Houses resembling those from US suburbs can be found in several cities throughout the country here but not far from them are other tin roof, dirt floor, one room homes that don't have the same fortune.

We have found ourselves living around poverty and seeing great poverty in a country that refuses to acknowledge it's existence. It presense is very loud and very clear with a deafening saddness that makes me uncertain of my role in it's existance.

On a happier note we are coming home soon to visit family and friends for the first time in over 7 months! We are looking foreword to our return but definately have grown attactched to our comunities here as well as the food (yey Frijoles y Tortillas!). Additionally we are excited about new opportunities for us here in El Salvador as our spanish and connects grow as well.
-posted by Tom

Pupusas and photos

2007-06-25T16:57:00.000-04:00

Without a computer near us it is easy to neglect our blogsite. So, for those of you who continue to read, thank you!

Well, as it usually happens we have a lot to write about but not alot of time, right now at least. So, we will leave you with a few photos and highlights…..

Tom has been quick to learn how to make a beautiful, round tortilla, not to mention a pupusa that can hold it’s own.

On the otherhand I have struggled in the tortilla /pupusa making area. Yes, they are edible, but frequently are not round and someitmes far from it!

As you can see in the photos Tom's pupusas are round, where mine are square. I think I will start a new fad here....square pupusas....it will be a hit!! Oh, by the way this was our first time making pupusas.

Don't know what a pupusa is??

El Salvador is famous for their pupusas. A pupusa is a thick, hand-made corn tortilla that is stuffed with one or more of the following: cheese, beans, pork, loroco (the nacional flower), spinach, etc…. These tasty treats can be bought for around .35 cents per pupusa (or as low as .20 in the campo). Don’t worry Marge, Jude or whoever else comes to visit this meal will be on us!!

More to come soon....Salvadoran soon
-posted by Melissa

It's a whole different world

2007-05-22T16:35:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of May we traveled back to Guatemala for the first time since coming to El Salvador in order to visit Shirley, Tom’s sister-in-law, who is back visiting the orphanage in Santa Apolonia. For Tom it was his first trip back to the orphanage in nearly 11 years and many things have changed. Obviously the kids are no longer the same as most of them have grown and left the orphanage, but we did get the chance to meet some familiar faces that knew him from when he visited the orphanage. The kids at the orphanage were great, full of energy and excitement, although REALLY draining. We’d like to send out some major PROPS for Tim and Shirley who must have had their patience strained constantly during their time spent there but we also know why you come back. It’s a great place with tremendous love and support for anyone who walks through their doors. While it was great to go back to Guatemala and especially nice to see Shirley again, we both noticed that something had changed about the feeling of Guatemala for us. We noticed that we are being to feel more at home in El Salvador and when the time came to return we were both happy to be back.

Last weekend we went with Gloria to visit her son (Julio), his wife and two kids, who live in the Department of La Libertad. If we had a car it probably would have taken us 2 hours to get there, but by bus and doing lots of waiting it took us 6. We also met Gloria’s mother, who is 75 years old and a spitfire. Although she has few teeth (that I could see) she talked more than anyone we’ve met thus far and really views life differently than her daughter (isn’t that usually the case). She is a very religious (Catholic) woman and with Gloria’s non-catholic more universal views of life, they had some interesting conversations. Gloria listened very well to her mother and does a great job of mediating as well as validating. Her mother also surprised Gloria a bit with saying that she was thinking of traveling to Nicaragua in August with a friend because she has never been there and she’s not getting any younger. Look out Nicaragua!

While we stayed with the family in their 3 room house, Julio and his wife gave us their bed to sleep in, while they slept on the floor (we thought in hammocks with their kids but found out later it was the floor). The hospitality of Salvadorans is amazing and really feels overwhelming at times. Gloria woke up in the morning with something crawling over her and we awoke some moments later to find the dogs in the room and having killed one of the mice. Another mouse (although these could have been classified as rats due to there size, about 6 or more inches each) we saw the run up along a basket near our bed before Gloria grabbed it in a shirt and took it outside (perhaps for the dogs). This all happened at about 4:30am yet Tom and I were so exhausted (and perhaps a little used to events like these) that we went back to sleep. Even though we were able to sleep in a bed, it was hard to sleep in a place that was strange to us. After we woke up, the morning consisted of hanging out with the family and getting to know them. Tom helped/watched Julio build a couple benches, with very minimal tools (a saw, hammer, few nails, and a type of hatchet). After getting everyone packed up we left their house by 11am in order to arrive back home at a descent time.

Finally we are in awe of how fast time has gone here. We have begun to be comfortable with our routines, life in the campo and have grown accustomed to the culture here. Soon we will be on a plane (in 9 weeks) to visit family and friends in Minnesota. The tickets were just purchased yesterday!! It feels like we are still experiencing a lot of culture shock here yet soon we will be experiencing culture shock in the states. Things that once seemed important in the US (such as my routine visits, at least two times a week, to Caribou coffee) now seems insignificant to the life we are living. We still have a lot to learn about the culture and the people here that make it so fantastic…..how do you live off of 1 or 2 dollars a day?? Many of you probably wonder what it is like to live in the country of a third world country and will have lots of questions for us when we return (which we will answer as best we can). Still, it is something that is hard to be explained and easier to experience through living. As one of the Salvadoran workers of CRISPAZ stated ¨It’s a whole different world¨.

-posted by Melissa

A little bit of livin' from Guillermo Ungo

2007-04-24T15:32:00.000-04:00

Upon returning to Guillermo Ungo from San Salvador on the 13^th of April, the week started off with something a little too familiar and once again I was stung by a scorpion. Actually it stung me twice, so I must have really made it angry. It was hiding within our clothing and when I set the clothing on my leg…BAM…a sting. Wow, this time it really hurt, I set off a couple F-bombs and was bent over in pain. (It’s a good thing the family doesn’t understand those words, actually Gloria and I were talking later and I did end up teaching her a few words…..she said it was important for her to know them! Ha!). Although there was no tingly sensation or numbness, there was a lot of pain that lasted for a few hours. The sting was the start of it, I have had a number of scrapes, blisters, and bruises (let’s just say that Tom has been my doctor this week) and he has been wonderful!! I have been continuing to work in the clinic, accompanying the doctor and the secretary, talking to people, and just getting to know my surroundings. When I am not in the clinic I am out with Gloria attending meetings about women’s rights and how to bring those issues back to the rural area. I usually get lost within the meetings, due to rapid speaking and not understanding a lot of the words; however, little by little I am learning more and look forward to the daily interactions with those in our community.

As for Tom he continues to teach English in the school, and also is starting to become more involved within the community development, but similar to my work, it is a slow process. I do want to add that when we are walking to school, the clinic or wherever, there is usually children who say ¨Salud Thomas¨, which is a form of saying hello. This is definitely something that brings a smile to our faces. Tom is also continuing to take guitar lessons from the neighbor Luis, and Luis has told him that he has plans for Tom to join his group rather soon! So Tom has been practicing a lot, and would actually look foreword to being a part of a music group once again. Hopefully he will be able to play something when we come back to the states for a visit in August!!

We haven’t given much history on our family structure with whom we are staying, so here it goes… Gloria, our host mom, lives in a three room house with two of her daughters (she has 8 kids total), Fatima (14) and Ana (8). Gabriel (11, her granddaughter) was also staying there, but has since moved next door. Next door (which is 15 feet away) lives Nena (Gloria’s oldest daughter), Walter (14, Nena’s oldest son), Gabriel (mentioned above, her niece), and Carolina (Nena’s youngest, 4). Gloria, whom I work with through the Defensoras Populares, is an outgoing, independent woman, who just turned the big 50. We celebrated with fried chicken, French fries, beers and friends, it was just what everybody needed. Gloria said this was the first time she had celebrated her birthday, but turning 50 is a big deal, so why not!! There are many cute stories about the family, but it is hard to find time to tell them all. From the smiles and giggles we get daily from Carolina and Ana, to Walter tagging along with Tom with Guitar lessons, as well as the evening English lessons that Fatima, Walter, and Gabby continue to ask for gives us a feeling of truly being a part of this family. In fact when we return from the city Gloria usually says that her ¨hijos¨ (kids) have returned. We definitely have been blessed to live with such a giving family.

-posted by Melissa

Music man

2007-04-17T16:15:00.000-04:00

Along with all the tough stuff comes some really fun stuff too... yesterday was one of those days.

When I arrived at CRISPAZ I knew that I´d have some time on my hands, especially during the winter season when it rains daily, so when I saw CRISPAZ had some old guitars at the office collecting dust I asked if I could borrow one. When I arrived many who saw me with the guitar, including Gloria's 14 year old grandson Walter, asked me if I could play... to which I responded ¨no, but I´d like to learn¨. Putting our heads together they suggested a nearby neighbor that could teach me, and last week it finally came together. His name is Luis in country terms he really is nearby (hop the barbwire fence, and walk through two neighbors yards, a right then a left and you're there). When I first met him I wasn't sure how this would all work out but since he admitted that he doesn´t own a guitar however, I quickly found out that the slightly older man really knows music. He´s got quite a history and most of which I still don't even know, but he has played in several bands and was one of the originals (founders) of a band called ¨La Cruz¨ which was pretty popular during the late part of the war (late 80s).

Anyway, he really has taught me a few things and I´m coming along well, but he invited me out with him to a ¨Concertina¨yesterday where he would be playing for a friend in Salitre. I was excited and after checking in with Melissa to make sure it was ok (she had some meetings planned with Gloria so couldn´t come along) I was off Monday morning. He told me it would be over an hour walk, we left at 7am and after a couple of stops along the way true to his word it took about 80 minutes. We left his place with 5 and met another 3 later on down the road, but what a road/path it was! After leaving the main road near where we live we walked through pastures with a variety of animals, through trees and brush, and places where there was barely a path. (I soon lost any hope of finding my way back with the help of Luis.) But the senery was breathtaking, it was something out of fairy tale; blue sky, mountains in the distance, and no sign of cars or really much of anything (including houses) for as far as the eye could see. What a sight we must have been to the cows and horses, walking through forests with guitars, an accordion, a large but light bass, a five stringed guitar, type of home-made rainmaker that served as a type of muraca... playing as we walked.

Finally our path widened out again and we found ourselves on a road passing houses hear and there. One of the members of the group asked me if I would join them in a tradition. From what I could understand upon ¨leaving¨ a place the play in they each share a drink of Tequila. He then asked if I drink Tequila to which I replied ¨not in the morning¨ which got a good laugh out of them. I quickly found out when we stopped to ask a neighbor for water that they not only drink shots after but before and pretty much until it´s gone. I joined in with them but was careful not to have to much as I figured these men had a upper hand in there tolerance levels. No one really drank too much as there was only two small bottles (12oz.) and there was eight of us to share it.

We soon found ourselves in the company of a wonderful cook who made us all breakfast after the group sang to them. At first I thought they were singing for our meal but later found out it was the same man who asked them out to the area when we came back for lunch. The place we went to sing was an open area that what resembled a dirt parking lot, but with less then half a dozen cars it soon become more of a place for the kids to play soccer. The group had incredible talents and I found that many of them (who didn't look older than me) would pass around the instruments as if they could play anything that their hands touched. I was caught up in listening to them so much that when a boy and later a man asked me to dance with a young woman there I was taken off guard. Since there was no one else dancing but plenty of people around I graciously turned down the offer. The group later found out about it and gave me a good ribbing for it.

Also one the guys in the group was strumming to the song ¨Dust in the wind¨ by Kansas and I told them I knew that song. Later while they were waiting to play he started playing it again and I took the opportunity to sing most of the song which I think caught them off guard. We also played in the church later that day, for a few dollars to a driver of a parked bus, and of course later for some drunks on the street for a drink of their Tequila. All in all I have more stories and impressions from that day than I can share but I will leave you all with this...

Ricardo, (a brillant musician with great enthusisum that he needs to move while he plays, sings, and smiles through all the songs) began a reacurring response to things that got too long or too boring that that day ¨Yo entiendo nada¨. Which means ¨I understand nothing¨, and was actually quite comidic the entire day. Just before the drunks offered us a drink for a song (which is a story in itself), one of them came up to me and was mutter something that I couldn't quite get and I could sense the eyes of everyone in the group on me. Not wanting to miss out on ideal moment I turned to him and strugged and said ¨Yo entiendo nada¨. The group (of singers) burst out laughing and I heard them repeating the story most of the way home.

All in all fabulous day!
-posted by Tom

We are here and adjusting…

2007-04-11T14:34:00.000-04:00

We haven’t posted in a long time due to several reasons but most of it can be summed up by that word, adjusting. Upon our arrival we spent two weeks in orientation but after we learned the basics about the organization and spending a majority of time applying for our temporary residency. Melissa received her provisional card which means that her paperwork has been accepted and she will wait as it gets reviewed. Tom on the other hand had some detail problems but received an extension in order to wait for corrections to be made. We were also able to explore the city a little, visited the remembrance wall, the Cathedral where Monseñor Romero is buried, also a few other historical sites here in

El Salvador

. Nonetheless, it soon became apparent the big piece would be adjusting to the El Salvadorian culture (which doesn’t come with a guide book). Although we spent time in

Guatemala

the atmosphere is different here and it’s taken some time to figure out what it is that’s different. The threat of violence seems much prevalent here but maybe that just because we can understand more now, or that there is less tourism here (which unfortunately does lead to more police protection), or something else entirely that we haven’t figured out yet. Some buses are more dangerous than others and none of them have maps explaining how to get from one place to another. Being out after dark isn´t advised (and that we should take a taxi if we are) and just like

Guatemala

it gets dark here everyday all year round by 6:30pm. We also got to enjoy some of the positives, such as: pupusas, beautiful weather, laying in hammocks, meeting new people, and a little rabbit named Vigilante (meaning Security Guard in Spanish, see picture) who loved to greet us in our room every morning.

After the cushy two weeks….life was about to change….

Life in the ¨campo¨ (countryside) has definitely been an adjustment for the two of us. Melissa is a little more used to the ¨creatures of the night¨ that lurk outside and in our house, but Tom is holding up well considering he is more of a city boy. When Javier (our supervisor) explained to us that there were minimum living options in the Ciudadela de Guillermo Ungo and one of the best options for us to have our own room would be to live with Gloria although her house would have no electricity. Tom and I pondered over this for about a day, but decided that we could do it for a little while. So we set out, with Tedde and Javier in the company truck (an old Datsun (88´ or 90´), short-bed, stick shift pickup with no power-steering) early on the morning of the 26^th of March to our new home; stopping on the way only to make necessary stops for a used bed, water and candles.

When we arrived at our new home Gloria was out of town on business (she does a lot of traveling with her work) so we needed to wait with her oldest daughter (who lived 15 feet next door) and all of the kids (who will be mentioned in the next post) until Gloria returned. We were able to set up our bedroom around 6:00pm so it was a good thing we bought candles on the way, and thank you Ernie for the flashlight that does not need batteries!!

The first night Tom woke due to an unfamiliar sound in the room, we quickly turned on our flashlight to notice that there was an object rustling around in Tom’s hiking pack. We sat in fright for a few minutes, as we were not sure what creature would jump out if we were to poke the pack. Tom eventually worked up the courage to poke the pack, nothing happened at first, but shortly after a little mouse scurried out of the pack and ran down the wall. We both jumped a little. Melissa was able to go back to sleep somewhat shortly after that, however Tom was up most of the night ¨on alert¨ for the mouse. When we woke the next morning we discovered that the mouse found some of our snacks and also ate some of our toothpaste which we smartly hid out in the open. When we told this to Gloria (our host mom) she thought it was hilarious and made a joke that the mouse must have really wanted to brush his teeth!

The next night we were able to sleep somewhat better, there were no visitors in the night (or none that we could hear). Melissa woke at 7am to take a shower before heading off to work, as she was grabbing the necessary items to shower (remember no lights) she tripped, but caught herself on the bed. Melissa then yelled out, ¨Ouch, what the hell was that!¨ and then proceeded to yell at Tom to find the flashlight. When the lights were found a small scorpion was sitting on the bed. Without drawing out the story, Melissa freaked out for a while; we called some fellow volunteers and Jeanne from CRISPAZ to get reassurance that she would be ok, then went to the clinic to get some meds to take for the sting. However, the following evenings were difficult in get to sleep in part to the scorpion but even more difficult from the heat.

We have many more stories to tell but want to keep this first post at a readable length so we will leave you all with some positives. Often we find ourselves looking up at the stars at night sharing stories and laughs with Gloria’s family. On several nights she has been willing to teach us some yoga exercises, or just talk with us which goes a long way towards calming our nerves and feeling welcome. We are settling in better than before (although still have a long way to go) and have realized that we have much work to do in adjusting to a lifestyle that is very foreign to us. Many of the simplicities and luxuries that we take for granted in the United States, indoor toilets, lack of insects and unwanted animals within a home, having chairs, and not having to walk 30 minutes to get to transportation are realities that the people we live with deal with everyday comfortably and without concern. Our instinct has told us that we ¨can’t¨ handle some of these things but it is our need to adjust to a different way of living, however difficult it might be for us in order to help us be more present to the people we are living and working with.

- Posted by Tom and Melissa

Final thoughts on Xela/Guatemala

2007-03-11T20:57:00.000-04:00

As we sit here in an internet cafe rewriting our last post in frustration due to somehow loosing it moments before... (deep breath...). We can't help but think that our last week has flown by faster than you can say "tiempo vuela".

We decided that it would be a great idea to take a couple extra Spanish classes during our final week. It did not seem to effect Tom as much but by Friday Melissa was definitely burnt (actually I think I was burnt by Tuesday morning). Tuesday was spent completing a 10 hour day of class and surprisingly we had enough energy after to play cards for a couple hours with Gene and Dorothy (our housemates) a fantastic couple from Kentucky.

On Wednesday we decided to cut our study days a little shorter so we could go to a futbol game. Melissa studied for 7.5 and Tom for 5 since his teacher jumped at the chance to join us for the game. We arrived at 5:30 for the game as we were advised that we should get there early since Xelaju was playing Municipalidad, a really good team from Guatemala City. However, probably due to the team playing poorly as of late, there was no line and the stadium didn't begin to fill until 15 minutes before the game kicked off (8:00). We learned that several of the players play for professional soccer teams as well in the U.S. , thus for those of you baseball fans it had the make up of a Twins vs Yankees game (when the Twins haven't been playing well). Before the game began we were told that we would learn words and phrases that we won't repeat here, however we will tell you that many of them we have also heard and seen written about our president due to his recent arrival. The atmosphere around the game was exhilarating and somewhat excentric with impressive fireworks, fans also shooting them towards the inflatable Pepsi sign in effort to lite it on fire, and a band that sounded more like a car alarm with brass. When Xela won 2-0 we couldn't help but think we had seen a game that would be remembered for a long time.

Thursday was another long day for Melissa as she started off her day with participating in a march with about 1,000 other women from Xela, celebrating International Women’s Day. She was able to be in the front of the march holding a banner with 2 other Guatemaltecan women. ¨It was a really great experice that excites me to start working with the women in El Salvador.¨ After the march Melissa went off to class while Tom finished up class and then did some errands we had before leaving on Saturday. After dinner we went over to Edna and Braulio’s (our previous family) to say goodbye. As we didn’t have much time to spend, we sat around talking about us leaving, our improvement in Spanish and Tom’s amoeba’s (which always make their way into conversation). As we were ready to leave, Braulio, Edna and Sintia offered to have a prayer, so we gathered in a circle in their living room while they chanted individually about prayers for us, our families and a variety of other prayers that we couldn’t understand (for several minutes). We left there that night with tears in our eyes and a gift in our hand.

Friday we finished with classes and were surprised and delighted that Teresa’s mom and dad (Teresa and Pablo) were going to join us (Tom, Melissa, Dorothy and Gene) for lunch. Pablo brought along some wine to share a few cheers. A lot of positive words were exchanged as both sides had a great experience with each other. After lunch Pablo offered to drive us (Melissa, Tom, Dorothy and Gene) up to Bauhl. We had previously been up to Bauhl, however could not turn down the offer to ride in Pablo’s car. We all piled in the car and took off for the short 20 minute drive up to Bauhl. Once there were able to smell the trees and pine, just enough to leave us yearning to go camping!! Friday evening we invited the family, Dorothy and Gene and Oscar to supper at Giuseppe’s dining on pizza and saying our goodbyes.

As we are excited to meet Jeanne, Tedde, Javier and Barb (who is travelling down from the office in Boston), we can’t help but to be sad to leave this place we had just begun to call home.
-posted by Melissa and Tom (twice)

Everything Changes... (soon)

2007-03-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

It's funny that feeling you get about being comfortable somewhere just before you leave. When I was in the city today I couldn´t help thinking as ¨I have often walked down this street before¨ (for all you fans of My Fair Lady) and that so much has become familiar to me. From the parks and cafes that we have read and studied in, the small tienda that we have invested a good amount of Quetzals in for snacks between classes, to the families and friends that we will soon be leaving; I couldn´t help but feel a sense of sadness as well as nervousness for the unknown.

Being extremely busy as of late I would like to use the words of the great Inigo Montoya (the spanerd from famed movie ¨Princess Bride¨): ¨let me explain, ah there is too much let me sum up¨. Our vacation was a blast with highlights being viewing the towering magesty of Tikal (left), climbing the active volcano Pacaya (below), and chocolate brownies (perhaps better than any we've eaten in the states). Resting was great and the break from our studies was just what we needed. At the point that we left Xela we were fried from our intensive studies and definately need some down time. Although we did and saw some amazing things during our vacation some of the best moments involved not doing much at all. We did get to watch a little TV (including the superbowl), went canoeing a couple of times, enjoyed some great foods, listened to live music that I know my dad would have been dancing too, and viewed sights that will hopefully soon be available in our albums for all interested to see.

Upon arriving back in Xela we had just spoken with CRISPAZ and finalized our dates of arrival to El Salvador, the 12th of March. Since that time we have been in contact with CRISPAZ much more frequently through email, even writing to them in Spanish which has come with much more ease than I could ever have claimed before. With today already being the first of March we've only got a little more than a week left in Xela and have decided to double up with some studies next week. That is to say we will study both in the morning and afternoon 10 hours a day to get the most out of our remaing time. By the weekend of the 10-11 we will travel down towards Guatemala city (as with construction that route now takes close to 8 hours by bus), and then will leave Guatemala behind (at least for now) and finially meet Jeanne, Teddie, Javier, Barb, and others working with CRISPAZ. So much change will happen soon but as for now we are trying to take one moment at a time and indeed cherish all that we have learned and gained from our time here in this wonderful country.
-posted by Tom

Our new family

2007-02-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I would like to start out by saying, I hope Tom didn´t scare to many of you with his previous blog. Unfortunately, it is one of the precautions we have to take here as ¨gringos¨and need to be wary of who to trust or believe.

On a positive note we want to share information about our new family. Tom and I moved the week before vacation, so have not had a lot of time to get to know them, but thus far they are fabulous. Upon arrival Tom and I were thrilled with our new habitation, we had no idea life could be this good. We have a large room, almost twice the size of the other room, a full size bed, a linoleum floor, and lots of shelf space. We were so excited about this room that we immediately jumped up and down and took some pictures. Teresa (our mom) is a fantastic cook!!! She firmly believes in eating healthy, therefore no strange pieces of fat have showed up on either of our plates. Teresa has two kids, Roberto; 4, and Andrea; 7, they are similar to other kids these ages, as they have a lot of energy.....and it seems either one or both cry at least a couple times a day. The first day Tom and I were at our new house, Tom and I finished lunch and went to our room, after we opened the door Andrea wandered in and started bouncing on the bed, and then proceeded to rummage through some of our items on the desk (this all happened within 10 seconds). Since Tom and I did not have the correct grammer to stay ¨You need to ask before touching our things and before coming in¨, I could only say ¨no, no, no¨which only worked for so long. Thankfully, Marge gave us tons of stickers which became the perfect distraction, I brought out the sticker book and lured Andrea outside of our room to oogle over the many stickers we have. We continue to get questioned about the stickers, daily... which has developed into fun and cute situations such as when they knocked on door wearing the stickers over one eye saying ¨¡Somos piratas!¨ (we are pirates) leaving Tom and I laughing allong with them. Although we happily give them each one, sometimes two stickers most days, we also try to interact with them in other ways. Needless to say Tom and I are very happy with our new family.

Don't Worry about it... We're on vacation

2007-02-11T13:35:00.000-05:00

Although my stomach isn't at 100%, I still have periodic waves of sickness or shall I say stomach pain as they usually don't amount to anything more than that, I thank the heavens that I no longer am taking that medicine. Additionally, the head cold and cronic runny nose that I had in Xela has dissapated into nothing most likely due to warmer whether and lack of volcanic dust from the active volcano behind Santa Maria. Here's a warm thought for all you that really worry about Melissa and I, I was talking with one of my Maestros named Julio and he told me that currently all of the active volcanos in Guatemala are more active as of late. In reguards to this there was a conference in Guatemala city with a team of scientists asking if Guatemala is ready for another big earthquake. If all of the volcanos become active at once (with this there is a small chance but nevertheless a chance) there would be an earthquake much like the one in 2002 (I believe that was the year) which would cause tremoudous damage. Julio told me that although the chances are small we should live each day like it could be your last, hense we are on vacation.

Now that I've probably worried our parents, I'll pause to tell you that living on a fault line within Guatemala these chances always exist but really only 2 tremendously damaging earthquakes have happened in that last 30 years or so. And perhaps the most positive part of all this was that my spanish has become so much better that I could understand and respond to the details of conversations like this rather than nodding and replying ¨Si¨or ¨No entiendo¨.

We have a TON of pictures that will keep us busy downloading upon the return from our vacation (a view from our hotel balcony of Lake Atitlan) but while we are now here relaxing in Antigua let me say that we've had a great time, thus far. We've probably spoken more english than we could have during our trip with each other but the break was most likely needed as well. Initially we went to Lake Atitlan and then briefly to Guatemala City where flew to Tikal. I'll write more on the places themselve later but first something more to worry you all...

Returning from Panajachel by ¨chicken bus¨(dubbed the name by the great possiblity that other animals who didn´t have to pay may enter or be walking around the bus) we sat on a near empty bus with some other travelers (one of which looked Guatemalatecan) who spoke English as well. After striking up a conversation with them we heard the consistant warning about watch out for robbers as they frequently enter these buses and being gringos we would always be targets. Later in the small town of Solola (only 20 minutes or so from Pana) those same two individuals came up to the front of the bus to talk to the driver and conductor. The then turned to us to whisper that two men in the back of the bus where acting strangely and they did not feel comfortable and wanted to switch buses. They invited us to switch with them and where going to ask for some of the money back. We decided to switch as well however the bus wasn't stopping any time soon and we had Melissa's big pack on the top of the bus. The other two individuals got off the bus leaving us to try and haggle with the bus driver about getting our lugage off the bus. He paid us little attention seemingly intent on leaving the crowded streets of Solola behind him.

The conductor was out on the streets and later climbed onto the bus so Melissa and I were left standing near the enterance of bus sidestepping new comers to the bus. If we would have left the bus there was a 100% chance that our pack with all of our supplies would have sped off with the bus to Guatemala City and we would have needed to add a lot of shopping to our plans. Not knowing what else to do Melissa and I sat back down exchanging nervous and confused looks occasionaly at each other (but trying to look like nothing was wrong even though we had thousands of questions swirling through our heads). Not more than 10 Kilos outside of Solola (although with all of nerves of confusion it felt like hours) the bus came to a stop on the roadside and the bus driver and conductor left the bus, and a police officer stepped on and greeted us and slowly walked down the row. He asked the man Melissa was sitting next to to get up and patted him down and looked through his bags. The man looked very nervous but was allowed to sit back down. The two other men that the orginal English speaking travelers (who left the bus in Solola) had decribed were led off the back of the bus and there belongings were looked through on the side of the road. Now those two men distinctly looked different as they had some ¨bling, bling¨jewelery on, a couple golden teeth and some darker clothes. One of the officers re-entered the bus and asked us all if we knew any other information and a couple of the passengers spoke to say they didn´t. He also asked if any of us lived in Pana, (as I believe the other two said they did) but no one spoke up to that. He described several other things that I couldn't make out and then the driver and conductor later entered the bus and we were on our way without the other two men.

I don't know if they found anthing with those two men or just singled them out due to stereo-typing which is quite commun here. Nonetheless it seemed very strange that our bus trip started with the two travelors who seemed weary of thieves (in fact the man stated that 50 out of 100 buses get held up by theives, a fact that seemed LARGELY exagerated as we had heard from other travelers that risks were small), and later they had either saved us all on the bus or created a stir for nothing. Missy and I still aren't really sure what to make of all that but honestly I felt myself feeling a little bit safer that the police had come onto the bus (and later checked the bus in Los Encuentros again) . Knowing the police and government system is largely corrupt as well I can't help but have mixed feelings about those two men that were pulled off the bus... were they discriminated against or was it justified? What about those origanal two travelors... were they to be trusted...or were they nuttier than squirrel shit? So many questions and I´m sure that will not be the last of our encounters with these events...

With all this said, when the taxi driver that was taking us to the bus stop Friday night in Guatemala City (after returning from Tikal) offered to take us to Antigua we bartered with him for a little bit but in the end were very greatful that we could avoid the most crowded and dangerous bus terminal on a very very busy last Friday night.

-posted by Tom

Sickness

2007-01-26T16:34:00.000-05:00

After watching the New England/Indinapolis game in a bar and having a Limonada that seemed more baking soda than Limon, I began to feel a little sick but will be damned if I was going to miss the end of it. So I stayed and was unable to get either excited or really to have much emotion at all without fear that my lunch at Pollo Campero would exit via a direction it was not meant to leave by. After Indi had sealed the deal I walked home and felt more and more like I should never have had that Limonada, but glad that I had seen the game. Upon reaching home it hit me less than 30 minutes later.... HARD. I wasn´t able to sleep most of the night for no more than an hour and found that anything that I had eaten recently was finding a way to the bottom of the toilet bowl through any means necessary. The morning found me unable to function really and Melissa after confirming with our teachers and CRISPAZ returned from school to spend the day with me at a clinic. By this time I didn´t have much left in my body but still felt more comfortable laying on a bench close to the bathroom in the back of the clinic. I couldn´t help but wonder if some Mayan mothers were purposely taking their children back to the bathroom to tell them they would have to stay with the sick gringo if they didn´t behave, for it was more quiet there. The doctor listened to my broken spanish patiently and after a lab sample confirmed that I had amoebas and prescribed some antibiotics that I would have to take for 10 days.

Upon returning I found that my appetite was regestering a big ¨0¨ and wasn´t able to consume much more than a bowl of soup and a few crackers during the next two days. Monday and Tuesday night weren´t much better for me either as I found myself waking up in the middle of the night with the inability to get back to sleep which Melissa must have appreciated greatly but only asked continuely what she could do for me (Bless her and her patience!). These past few days have been a little better for me as my stomach doesn´t hurt but often feels tight. I still have a small appetite which doesn´t help these meds which were made strong enough for a small army. Whoo, what great day it will be when I no longer have to take them!

Needless to say Melissa and I have decided to stay another week to study and let my sickness run its coarse (or the meds, I´m not sure which I find the greater struggle...). Nonetheless I find myself greatful for little things (like the times I am sleeping or not taking my meds), no seriously the times that Melissa and I find ourselves laughing with our family about my inability to congengate a verb or when she runs to the supermarket during our 30 minute break (about a 1/2 mile away) for yogut for me I am greatful. And also a little hesitant to get well as I know well these things come full circle. Also I find myself really wondering if these really are amoebas or if perhaps deep down I´m really a New England fan?

Our weekend in Chichi

2007-01-24T17:16:00.000-05:00

This past weekend Tom and I ventured out of the city of Xela to the nearby town of Chichicastenango. Chichi is approximately 3 hours away from Xela and is well-known for their market on Sundays. Also, Tom´s aunt MaryAnn was going to be in Chichi for the week, so we thought we would venture out and go visit. On Friday we left for the ¨bus terminal¨ around 1:30pm, this was our first adventure to the ¨bus terminal¨ and it was definately not what we expected. We took a smaller bus to the terminal (I forget what this is called, but it´s basically a minivan). We arrived at the terminal which was basically the side of the street where many people gathered to catch a bus to their own destination. We stood for around 15 minutes waiting for buses...to our dismay there were none heading towards Chichi. We started aimlessly wandering towards other areas of the street in search for our bus....there continued to be none. Tom was able to ask a couple people where the buses were for Chichi and we were told they were in another area. We then walked towards where we thought the busses were, but once again none to Chichi. Tom once again asked one of the bus drivers and was told there is another area for buses....on the other side of the market. So, once again Tom and I took off in search of our bus....wandering through the market (which we never new was as big as it was) after walking through the market for a good 15 minutes we stumbled upon an open, noisy area with many, many busses and lots of people. We didn´t really need to look for a bus as there were people coming up to us and asking where we needed to go. So, after spending an hour searching we finally found our bus to Chichi and were ready for the 3 hour ride. Although I slept most of the way I also gained a friend (a teenage boy who was so tired he fell asleep on my shoudler), and Tom got a good chuckle out of that.

Once in Chichi we got a place to stay at a hotel for around 70 quetzales a night, which is around $10 in american. The room was not fancy by any means and the bathroom smelled pretty bad, but it had a gorgeous view of the city. Friday night was fairly uneventful, we explored the city a little, but it was dark so we were not terribly comfortable wandering around, so we more or less ate and went back to the hotel. Saturday we were wandering around the city by 9am, strolling down the main street where the market takes place. Tom and I had our sites on a restaurant that was recommend through a book...however, on our way to the restaurant we heard a familiar american voice ¨Tom, Melissa¨ Tom stopped immediately, however I was dead set on that breakfast and payed no attention. I eventually turned around to see that MaryAnn had found us. We spent some time hanging out with MaryAnn and made plans to go to Pascal Abaj, which is a ritualistic Mayan place of worship. MaryAnn went her seperate way as Tom and I went to Pascal Abaj. Once at Pascal Abaj Tom and I felt as though we were intruding, as there were ceremonies taking place, therefore we didn´t stay very long. (Although during the ceremony the leader (or bujo I believe) stepped away from the ceremony to take a call on his cell phone.)

Upon the walk back we stumbled upon a small artisian shop called Project Guggenheim, they actually have a website if you want to check it out. www.projectguggenheim.org This is a place where young children and teenagers are able to learn how to paint, sculpt and various other forms of art. There are several of them throughout the world. They had a lot of beautiful artwork!! Tom and I bought two smaller piece of art, we also brought MaryAnn back later in the day and she bought something as well. The rest of the weekend we spent doing some shopping and hanging out. Oh yeah and it´s hard to forget all of the people who would follow MaryAnn around and want her to buy whatever they were selling. One lady even followed us to MaryAnn´s hotel and then found us again later in the evening....no, MaryAnn did not buy anything from her, but she could´ve gotten the items at a really good price!! Sunday we took a little side trip to a nearby city, but to our dismay it was not what we expected...we left after spending a short amount of time there. Once we got back to Chichi it was time for Tom and I to head back to the city. Back on the bus and back to Xela.

Odds n´Ends

2007-01-15T19:04:00.000-05:00

There are of things that I have been thinking about but haven´t had the chance to write about yet.

First, Pollo Campero...

Although I don´t have a picture of this fast food chain that could easily give KFC a run for their money (in fact KFC tried to bring some stores down here and Pollo Campero continued to take all their business). According to my maestro this business is native to Guatemala and actually the owners were origanially from the Xela area. For those of you in the states think of a KFC but tastier chicken and less grease as well. Great food and a lot of pride from nearly any Guatemalan when you ask about it and excitement too. However with all chains it has it´s downfalls, as the owners have not only a monopoly on the restaurantes that have dominated all over the central american countries (as well as within some areas in states), they also control all of the chicken supplied to the grocery stores and the feed for chickens too if any families buy that for chickens that they may be raising (like ours for example). Nonetheless it doesn´t feel as bad as going to McDonalds so I have justified it to myself thus far. In our two experiences of it we were amazed how fast we got our food, in fact my slogan for the place has been ¨Pollo Campero, where the food comes fast and the bill comes slow¨. It´s almost as though they don´t want us to pay... (I wish...)

The cemetary here has been BEAUTIFUL and peaceful as well. For me I have been able to use a place like this to reconnect, both to myself and to the world around me. There have been several of those places and things that often help when I´m feeling down or little homesick. Another was re-finding some ¨Jalopenos chips¨ that I origanally fell in love with when I visited Tim and Shirley (my brother and his wife) here over 11 years ago. I´ll spare you the stories of how I would buy 4 or more at a time (they are small one ounce bags) when I was only a lad of 14-15, but I will tell you that not much has changed. I still think when eating them all one´s problems seem to dift away... at least for me. Many times it´s been the small things that have allowed me to recenter and realize how blessed I have am to be able to experience this world around me. If I may add a personal note I would like say that it´s been great to have Melissa here as I couldn´t imagine the experiencing the difficulties without someone I care so much about. After all someone needs to eat the wiggly meat... (so if I have any Melissa´s plate may get larger when she´s not looking.... hey!)

-posted by Tom

Adventures in Xela

2007-01-13T19:04:00.000-05:00

Life here in Xela continues with new adventures almost daily. This week has been busy with the activities that the school has arranged for students. On Tuesday Tom and I along with other students were able to get a free Salsa dance lesson. The lesson was one hour long and needless to say I was a little sweaty after and we both were yearning for more. Wednesday we ventured to Banos de Vahos, which was about a 20 minute bus ride from Xela and an hour walk up to this fantastic place. Banos de Vahos is basically a sauna, it is naturally heated by the hotsprings that are located underneath Banos de Vahos. It was very relaxing, refreshing (just what we needed) and had a wonderful aroma of Eucalyptus. Not to mention the view of the city during the walk back to the city, it was spectacular. Thursday we once again ventured out of the city to ¨COPAVIC¨, which is a company that makes glassware, anything from cups to vases to smaller glass trinkets, etc... Once we viewed all the glassware we were able to walk into the workshop, which is where all of the items are made by the men who work there. This was a very interesting process of making the glassware. I can´t describe how they do it very well, but we took lots of pictures. I was asked by one of the male workers if I wanted to give it a try (I think he saw the fascination in my eyes), how could I really turn this offer down!! So he handed me this metal rod that was probably 4 feet long with a very hot piece of liquid glass on the end. Carefully, I took the rod and with some assistance from him started turning the rod and simotaneously blowing in the end of the rod. At this time he was saying ¨suave, suave¨, luckily that is one of the spanish words I know, meaning smooth. After I got the hang of it he let me handle it by myself....after 15 seconds of blowing the small hot piece of liquid metal turned into a larger glass ball. It was very cool. We took pictures of the adventures this week and have them posted on an online gallery, those of you who are interested please leave a comment here on this blog page and we will send you an email with the gallery address.

Other than the activities we also continue with school and life with our host family. Tom´s spanish is getting rather good where I struggle to put a sentence together. But, with a little hope, serious studying and a good teacher hopefully I will start to improve. The meals here continue to be a struggle, however we get by the best we can. Tom was not feeling well the other day and told our host mom before lunch to let her know that he would not be eating much. Edna was ok with that however, proudly made Tom a drink that she was convinced that will cure his troubling stomach problems. She made up this elixer (that looked just as bad as the soup we were eating) and proudly gave it to Tom. Reluctantly, Tom gave the elixer a taste and over the course of 10 minutes was able to finish the glass. He was not able to tell me until we were in our room that the drink was ablsolutely horrible. He stated it was worse that the soup, I had a hard time believing that because the contents of the soup closely resembeld the water of a swamp in my parents back yard.
-posted by Melissa

Life is good (although sometimes not my stomach)

2007-01-06T18:08:00.000-05:00

Although lunch today was a struggle for me, (it was a rice soup with a large chunk of meat that was more bone than meat for me) I tend to enjoy most of the meals. They are just an adjustment as much of the food are new to both Melissa and I. I may have to approach my Edna (mother) about the warm-hot-boiled milk that seems to be giving my stomach struggles. They are very nice, in fact I complemented them on the meal we had last night and I was told today that we are going to have it again! How nice! They could have just had leftovers however I still think it was a nice gesture. We had class again today to finish out our first week and both Melissa and I decided to have a half day so that we could tackle our landry and our room. We are so lucky our family has a washing-machine, we definately won´t be spoiled like this in El Salvador. I have really enjoyed my time with the family but often find myself tounge-tied with putting sentences together. I continue to try though and have found my spanish as good as it´s ever been thus far. Today in class I spent over two hours just talking with my maestro (like a teacher just a different name as well as degree from school) and was able to follow everything. In fact when I didn´t understand a word I was able to understand other explainations in spanish describing it. A fun day we talked about everything from musical likes-dislikes to both of our countries dependancy on petroleum. A far cry from were I was just one week ago, although I still have so much to learn.

Switching back to the family I have really enjoyed my time with Braulio, the father of our family. He enjoys a variety of music and especially American Music, often playing his guitar along to the Beatles, or other songs on the radio. The radio station that he listens to (loudly) has actually been a haven of 80s retro-classic rock for me. I think Melissa has liked it too but for those that know my musical tastes would say that this station has tapped into my brain. Tomorrow Melissa and I are going to the hot springs nearby Xela which should hopefully relax away those first week strains of study.
- posted by Tom

Our family and New Years

2007-01-05T18:17:00.000-05:00

As mentioned in a previous post we have been blessed with a great host family. The family consists of mom (Edna), dad (Braulio), two sisters (Judith and Sintia), grandma (her name is still a mystery). Along with these people we share a life with 2 dogs, 2 ducks, 2 cats, 2 chickens, 2 roosters, 3 parrots, and 2 smaller birds, oh and we found a dead slug (which was as long and big as your index finger) in the bathroom this morning, tom was nice enough to clean it up but felt some unpleasent reguritation in his throat while doing so. The setting of the house is something we are not quiet used to, not to say it is bad, however it is very secluded. Even though there is seclusion we have plenty of time with our family during meal times. We also were able to spend time with them on New Years.....On the 31st we woke bright and early to help stuff the turkey. Stuffing a turkey here is Guatemala is quite different from the stuffed turkey that I am used to. This turkey was filled with mostly another kind of meat (not turkey), also mixed with almonds, prunes and I´m not sure what else. This turkey was raised in their backyard and was not more than a year old. When we finished stuffing the turkey we were told that we would eat around midnight.

Tom and I spent most of the day in our room (which is actually quite nice) playing cards, talking, etc.. As time rolled by we figured we would see what our family was doing so around 10pm we went out of our room, however the house was quiet as ever. We retreated back to our rooms, continuing this process with no success until around 11:10pm. We then were able to hang out, and attempted to talk to them. We drank some wine (and Egg nog, which tasted exactly the same (yum!)), listened to music, which turned into dancing, then the conga and before we knew it we were toasting the new year and eating turkey at midnight. We also listened to fireworks before the ones that lit up the sky went off just after midnight. This was definately a memorable, but short, New Years celebration.

Mystery meat

2007-01-05T17:59:00.000-05:00

A couple days ago I was sitting down for lunch with my Guatemalan family. As some of you may know the largest meal of the day in Guatemala is lunch and typically alot of food is served (in our family anyways), also it can be seen as an insult not to finish your meal. No matter how many times I have told my family that I want small portions I continue to receive large portions. This particular day I sat down to eat and a plate of food was served to me. I was astonished not only by the size of the portions, but also by this massively large piece of meat (I still am not sure of what it was). This meat portion took up 1/4 of my plate....not only that but it wiggled and it had some form of black hair still attached to it. At first I thought, maybe most of this meat is not edible (wiggly parts mostly) and I could eat around it. As I thought this I looked over at my host mom, Edna, as she was winding this piece of fat around her fork like it was spaghetti and put it all in her mouth...I nearly gagged. Thankfully on this day I was blessed with having to attend Spanish class in the afternoon. Timing my meal just right I was able to dodge this mystery meat and claim that I did not have enough time to finish my plate. I hope I will not have to encounter this mystery meat again, for if I do may I be lucky enough to have a way out.
-posted by Melissa

We´re here!

2006-12-31T16:23:00.000-05:00

After a long two days of traveling with a several mini-adventures along the way we now find ourselves with our host family about to celebrate the new year. The first day we got hung up in Houston due to our connecting flight being late and the end result was missing the bus that took us to Xela. So we needed to stay the night in a hostal in Guatemala City which was extremely quiet, in fact there was no one else there and often the manager would leave the front desk and we couldn´t find them. Not that we would have had much to talk to them about at that point anyway since they didn´t know any English and Tom´s spanish was a bit shaky at first. Melissa was daring enough to take a cold shower Saturday morning at 530 and came out already though a bit cold. We hopped on a bus after Victor who was our savior from the airport, as well as our transporter to and from the hostal to the bus station, bought us tickets to Xela. Although we slept most of the way and were in and out of Cobra (starring a young Sly Stallone) and Cars which were both dubbed over in Spanish, (Okay Tom was watching more than Melissa) we enjoyed beautiful scenery. After arriving Mario from the school found us (much to our relief) and the rest has been cake, HAHA. We´ve been getting by and Tom´s spanish is beginning to get better which helps, but not as much as Melissa´s humor. Our host family is extremely nice and we will write more about them later as well. Well, that´s all for now as we need to get ready to bring in the new year with 10 Guatemalans who know little to no english and 5 of them we haven´t even met yet. Thanks goodness for humor and broken spanish.... and dictionaries!