Travels

So the airport finally opened and Tony was able to make it down safely. We spent most of our time in Chisec so I could finish up some projects before the two week school break. I'm in the middle of a bunch of big construction planning so lots of trying to motivate teachers, parents and masons as well as trying to find money for all these projects. ( US AID where is all this money you promised?) Tony came to school with me one day and the Q'eqchi women had a great time trying to figure out if he was a giant Guatemalan or an American. I wish we could have spent more time traveling around but unfortunately I don't have enough vacation days left to do that (saving them up for my 2 week trip back home in August). We did get to go down to Lanquin and had a wonderful time doing the candle lit cave tour and swimming in the pools up in Semuc Champey.

Nothing better than a man cleaning your room

Parent meeting in Pecajba

Waiting for a the bus in Lanquin

I've got my brother here now and Alex and I are heading off to Flores to go see the Mayan ruins before we head down to Antigua for the all volunteer conference and 4th of July party (which our country director decided to hold on the 3rd not the 4th, who knew she had enough power to move our independence day...)

Rain, rain go away.

Here's whats happening in Guatemala:

A tropical depression, that I will be referring to as "Shit Storm" has hit Guatemala. First the volcano erupted and now we're set to get hit by some nasty tropcal rain for at least the next 10 days. Peace Corps has us on lockdown on our sites and I really need to g

o to Coban to buy some cinnamon toast crunch. The airport is currently closed and if Tony can't make it down next week because of volcanic ash on the runway I'm leaving...when the airport reopens that is.

Maybe the Mayans were right, 2012 is coming. (actually my guatemalan friends were joking about this at lunch yesterday).

UPDATE: Sat afternoon

So it got a little bit too wet and I'm now unofficially on lock down until at least Tuesday in Tactic at my friend Kate's house with Jareau and Kelsey. Scrabble and Trivia Pursuit for the next three days. Also, the airport is scheduled to be closed until at least thursday so they can remove the volcanic ash-turned-cement from all the water from the tropical storm. Tony and I are frantically trying to figure out what to do so that he can still get down here.

UPDATE: Monday evening

So Agatha, the first tropical storm of the season hit Guatemala on Saturday mid-morning and wiped out a huge part of the country. Over a hundred people are confirmed dead with dozens more missing, and over a hundred thousand people are displaced. The President issued a state of emergency but the airports still closed so help is slow to arrive. Bridges are washed out and landslides have cut off some of the major roads leaving people and PCVs in some villages isolated without power or clean water. We didn't get hit too hard up here, but the school is cancelled nation wide for at least a week. More updates to follow.

Tubing

So, a few weeks ago I was walking down the street towards the bus stop to head to work. I saw a bunch of people waiting for the buses and was not anxious to join them for a cramped spot on one of the few buses going towards my school. A bus comes, all the guatemalans get excited because it looks pretty empty, but it doesnt stop. Instead, someone leans out the window and yells my name. Turns out that a group of the tourism volunteers were coming up for a trip to the tubing site near my house. I ditched work, jumped in the van with them and spent the afternoon hanging out in the caves of Candelaria Campo Santo with the new eco vols and a few of our alta veterans.

Seriously?

From the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary:

Main Entry: pla·gia·rize

Pronunciation: \ˈplā-jə-ˌrīz also -jē-ə-\

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): pla·gia·rized; pla·gia·riz·ing

Etymology: plagiary

Date: 1716

transitive verb: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the sourceintransitive verb: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

I thought plagiarism ended once we'd graduated from school. Apparently its been around long enough to have earned its own dictionary entry in 1716, so I stand corrected. After two cases of people stealing my writings and publishing them as their own I've decided that I'm going to password protect my blog. Some say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I say thats bullshit. Do your own work.

If you want the password to my blog you can email me at RebeccaDreyfuss@gmail.com for it. I'll leave it unprotected for another couple of weeks so people have a chance to read this post. Thanks to all of you who have been keeping up with me, I promise more interesting blog posts are soon to come!

Vacation Mexico Style

Alright, I've got a pila full of dirty dishes that need washing (which I can now wash at night because Mario installed electricity in the back half of my house!!!) so I'm not going to go into too much detail right now, but I had an absolutely amazing last 2 weeks of vacation. My parent's came down and spent a few days in Antigua with me before we headed up to Playa del Carmen in Mexico and then Tony came and visited. A few photos, more to follow later!

Feliz Cumple!

Happy Birthday to my fabulous parents! I love you guys!

So in exactly 5 days my parents are coming to visit me in Guatemala and then we're heading up to Playa del Maya for a little vacation in Mexico. A sort of big birthday celebration for all three of us. Can't wait!!

UV Water Purification

So its UV water purification day with my kiddies out in aldea Pecajba

basically

clean empty bottles + water + sun + 24 hours = more creative ways to reuse plastic bottles and clean drinking water.

poco a poco we're cleaning up the environment and improving rural health

Photos to follow!

UPDATE:

So I woke up Thursday morning feeling pretty shitty. I'd had a tough time falling asleep the night before and Chris and I have both been sick for the last few days. I hit the snooze button once but the second time my alarm went off Chris yelled at me to get out of bed and go to work, so on three hours of sleep I hauled my tired self the 20 minutes to the center of town and got on a micro to the school (thank goodness this is my one school that is off the main highway so its easy to get to).

I showed up at school and several of my second grade boys saw me and came running out of their classroom to open the gate for me. Their smiles definitely turned my morning around (although they probably could benefit from some serious flossing...) The school principal and I headed the purification project and with the hard work of the other four teachers and the enthusiasm of the children we were able to wash and fill over fifty bottles of water and place them on the tin roof to purify in the sun over the weekend. The students will now have enough water to drink during the week and Fridays are our new water purification day. After school we held a meeting with the parents in the community to explain to them the UV purification project as a way of educating them on better health practices as well as including them in the Healthy Schools project. They loved the idea and got a huge kick out of hearing me attempt to explain everything in Q'eqchi. Lots of smiles and lots of laughing.

Thanks to the dedication of these teachers and the support of the families in the community the students of Pecajba will have clean drinking water all year. Hands down my best day as a Peace Corps volunteer.