Roomies

Love them or hate them, life is full of sharing rooms, houses, and leftovers with roommates. I’ve had a lot of roommates in the past, some I’ve loved, others I’ve been less than enthusiastic about and life here in Guatemala is no different. Now Peace Corps policy prohibits us from cohabiting with other Peace Corps volunteers, something about not integrating with society kind of deal, although personally I think Guatemalans find it quite bizarre that I’m not living with my family or at least friends. I think some even generally feel sorry for my solitary home life, which may explain the frequent early morning visits from several of my male teachers. (that or my habit of doing yoga at 6am in just shorts and a sports bra). Someone must have put an ad up on craiglist advertising my house. Possibly something along the lines of:
Gringa seeks roommates in her cozy two bedroom hut to aid in further integration into jungle lifestyle.

Recent responses to the alleged ad have included, scorpions, tarantulas, this horrendous arachnid known as a tailless whip scorpion which is neither scorpion nor spider, toads, mice, iguanas, ants, mosquitoes and the neighbors dog (he came running into my house a few nights ago dragging not just the chain they use to tie him up with but the entire tree branch he was tied to). And just like roommates they eat my food, keep me up late at night and steal my stuff. The dog ran off with one of my shower sandals earlier today, I took off after him but the little mutt is fast.
Generally my roommates are annoying but I deal. Its easier to gently relocate the tarantulas outside then clean up the hairy squished mess and I even caught one of the scorpions (hes living in an empty peanut butter jar). The tailless whip scorpion has escaped my attempts at smashing him with a boot so many times that I’ve decided to adopt the motto “walk softly and carry a big stick”.  If my life were a reality show it would be called Survivor: Guatemalan Jungles, life in a giant terrarium…lets just say I'm glad I sleep underneath a mosquito net.

Would you want this living in your shower?

Tailless whip scorpion

smattering of photos from life in Guatemala

Chris and some guatemalan boys

new roommate

mike and chris bbqing in tactic

mike and michelle

lorba and her meat

the famous arch in antigua

antigua churches

salto(waterfall) 

antigua with Volcan Agua in the background

carrying a load

the parrot that lives in the yard

cuevas candelaria campo santo

Chris's house (where ive been living until he comes back in Oct)

mudslide!

About a month ago Chris and I were headed to Coban to watch a big soccer game. About an 45 minutes into the two hour ride all traffic stopped, and for a road that rarely sees more than two or three cars in the same mile stretch, it was crazy seeing about a hundred cars backed up. Everyone got out, and after arguing with the driver about getting a refund on half of our fare, we followed the crowd and started walking. Turns out heavy rains turned the hillside to heavy mud and in the middle of the night a huge plot of a corn field fell. We had to walk about 300 yards through mud below the highway with all of our stuff to get to the other side. Chris was wearing boots so he had no problem, but I was in my rainbows (as usual) and ended up hiking in my bare feet. Here are some pics Chris took of the mudslide.

just getting by

So food is in a major shortage down here because, well aid isn't reaching the needy and theres a major draught.   (Its barely rained at all in the last month and this is supposed to be the height of the rainey season) The poor indigenous people can't afford to keep the food they grow and they have to sell their beans and eggs instead of giving them to their kids. People are malnourished because all they can afford is tortillas and while they dont really look like the starving African babies you see on television and in new articles because they're full of corn, they  are really sick and struggle to survive and sometimes fall asleep on eachother/me on the buses.

What this translates to is that food prices are skyrocketing. Tomatoes cost 2 Quetzales/lb in March and they now cost 5Q/lb. There are no reason for the price increase other than the food crisis (no seasonal factors) but for whatever reason apples are dirt cheap, probably because they have such a short season and also because Guatemalans seem opposed to anything that you can't fry or serve in a bag.

So what does this all mean, it means that I can buy a pound of apples for 2Q (8.4Q=$1). So today I was like alright im gonna by some apples, but they arent all pretty and groomed like the ones in the states (did you know their are federal regulations in the US of A about what produce has to look like, ie no funny looking carrots, lopsided apples, etc) so I didnt want to just eat the apples plain, with bruises and potential ameobas so I decided to cook them. I peeled, cored and cubed the apples and threw them in a pot with some water, some sugar, a  ton of cinnamon and let them boil. I passed out in the hammock and 30 minutes later woke up, turned the stove off and smashed up the apples into their gooey goodness.  Tastes just like apple pie filling.

But not to make light of a very serious problem, Healthy Schools volunteers, myself included, have been hosting special community meetings to parents, teachers, women's groups and other social organizations to stress the importance of proper nutrition and cost saving ways to provide food for not just children but all those going hungry. And while the problem is much more deeply routed than  spending habits and lack of education, we are doing what we can.

Below are a few links to articles about this crisis in Guatemala.

Economist:

http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displayStory.cfm?

story_id=14313735&source=hptextfeature

CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/09/guatemala.calamity/index.html