Cuatro, tres, dos, patada

("patada" = kick)

This weekend was the first weekend at NPH when I literally had no plans. No program dinners, no NPH events, no big nights out in Antigua. I was so excited to have the entire weekend to do as little or as much as I wanted, and it ended up being awesome.

Friday was (fellow volunteer) Daniela’s birthday, so we threw her a big fugata (bonfire) in the fire pit behind one of the volunteer houses. I must say, man did we make one successful fire. And of course, at first mention of a bonfire, the Americans went out and bought marshmallows to roast and ingredients to make s’mores.

Our fancy bonfire!

Happy Birthday Daniela! She LOVES turtles (tortugas), so all the volunteers pitched in to buy her a tortuga mobile we found in Antigua.

In Guatemala, marshmallows are called “angelitos” (little angels) and are about three times the size of marshmallows you normally find in the U.S. When Cheryl was out buying them, she sent me a text saying “Oh wow. I just bought marshmallows and they are the size of baseballs.” She wasn’t kidding.

The s’mores were delicious, but as we looked around, we realized that only the American volunteers were eating them. Clearly, putting a giant fluffball of sugar on a stick and plunging it into a flame isn’t quite as cool everywhere else in the world. Huh. I guess I would have thought that we were crazy too if I had never seen a s’more before.

The rest of the weekend involved a trip to Chimal for errands (our house bought a coffee maker!), Taco Bell (yes, again), and Sarita ice cream (When you ordered one scoop in a waffle cone, your second scoop was free!! Best day ever!!!) and some roasting of the leftover marshmallows over one of the burners on our stove. There was reading, sleeping in, painting my nails, and watching two movies I’d been wanting to see – Julie & Julia and Fame (both were good, and yes, buying bootleg movies here is as easy as walking down the street to one of the 15 bootleg movie stores in town). Yesterday I made a trip to the Sunday market for vegetable and fruit buying, and it was my cheapest day yet! Only 22Q (less than $3) for bananas, a watermelon, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, and cucumbers; I was excited. We also had a house welcome dinner last night where the old volunteers in our house cooked dinner for the new volunteers! We ate delicious homemade deep-dish pizza, and we were all in food comas afterwards.

Yum! Homemade pizza courtesy of Katie and Leeah!

So, great weekend – and that’s not even the best part.

Best part?

Yesterday morning, I taught a Boxilates class (half Kickboxing, half Pilates, duh) to three of the girls I live with. We pushed aside the kitchen table, blared some tunes, and worked up a sweat. It was hysterical.

Thank you, self-timer, for this hilarious photo.

For those who don’t know, I taught classes like Boxilates at William & Mary’s Rec Center for three years, so this isn’t quite as random as it might sound. However, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t still look like an idiot. It’s been a while since I’ve taught a class, so I’m sort of out of practice. I also don’t own any kickboxing music of my own, so we ended up working out to The Killers’ Mr. Brightside on repeat for half an hour. Not kidding. One song repeated for 30 minutes. Oh, and did I mention I taught this whole class in Spanish???

Yep, with Letizia’s help, my Spanish vocabulary expanded immensely this weekend and now includes such crucial words as knee, step, stretch, kick, and gluteus. I have also mastered the art of counting down an 8-count using Spanish numbers.

¡Ocho más! ¡Ocho, siete, seis, cinco, cuatro, tres, dos, otra vez!

So much fun. The volunteers in my house have already requested a second class for Tuesday, and they told me I should definitely talk to someone at NPH about teaching classes for the older sections of girls here. I’ll keep you all posted.

Well, that’s the weekend update! How is it February already? Til next time, hasta luego!

Now It's Official: I Am the Published Home Correspondent

Today, the articles I've been writing are finally starting to be published on the NPH website! It's official! I am the Home Correspondent, and I'm actually doing work!

Now, these aren't of incredibly high-caliber journalism, and they aren't incredibly clever either. My job is to make sure donors, potential volunteers, NPH godparents, and other interested parties can check in and see what's going on here. NPH articles are meant to be informative but enjoyable to read, and they serve as PR for the organization. They sort of have a style all their own.

But by all means, read them if you'd like! I'm planning on posting them all here, so help yourself. :)

Farewell to Our Volunteers - NPH Guatemala says goodbye to nine volunteers.

New Volunteers for 2010 - Meet NPH Guatemala's new volunteers.

Gotta Start Somewhere

I know I've mentioned "secciónes" before. Every volunteer is paired up with a section of kids here at NPH, and they are sort of "yours" for the year. According to your contract, you have to eat dinner and spend time with them twice a week. In reality, you probably end up seeing them much more often than that.

To a section of kids, a volunteer becomes the cool friend they're pretty excited to have. You're a new face -- and more importantly, you're not their teacher assigning them homework or their caretaker telling them when they have to go to bed. In their eyes, you're basically an automatic superstar.

My girls are between 12 and 15 years old, and they automatically think I'm cool because I know the words to songs by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Rhianna (oh, and High School Musical too, although I didn't just admit that). I didn't have to work too hard to get this far, but it would be nice if we could talk about things other than Zac and Vanessa's off-screen relationship.

However, my Spanish so far has been a little rocky with them. When we hang out, it's a lot of them talking and me just sitting and trying to keep up. (That's right, I said I do very little talking. Clearly this is a new experience for me haha.) But, I decided that I  have to start somewhere.

So, I decided to make it my goal to learn all their names as fast as possible, and this week, I made it!

I know all 21 of them apart from one another! I think it's helping too. When they say hi to me now, I think it catches them by surprise that I respond "Hi, _______!"

I'm so proud.

And now, just to practice, I'll name them all off from the photo, haha.

Back row, left to right: Yocari, Adela, Marta, Estrella, Yohanna, Dañia, Fidelia, Juana, ...um girl who isn't in their section so I don't actually know her name...shoot, Irma, Xela.

Middle row, left to right: Reina, Rosalia, Odilia, Maria, Stela, Katerin, Celeste, Carmen.

Bottom row, left to right: Georgia, Ana Patricia.

Missing a.k.a. sick: Ruth

Hah!

Volcán Fuego

From the NPH home, we look out every day at two gorgeous volcanoes: Volcán Agua and double-peaked Volcán Acatenango. There is a third volcano too, Volcán Fuego, but we can’t see it from our location because it’s hidden behind Acatenango.

Fuego is still active (just in the puffs of smoke kind of way, not in the spewing lava everywhere kind of way), and it’s a normal occurrence in this area of the highlands to look up and see smoke billowing from its peak.

I just witnessed this for the first time the other day, so here are a couple of fun pics! Remember that Fuego is hidden behind Acatenango, so that’s why the smoke is off-center.

Enjoy!

Looking out from my office towards the arched entranceway to NPH.

Semi-creepy photo taken by one of my co-workers from behind the statue of  NPH's founder.

Close-up!

No Hay Corriente

“Mañana, no hay corriente en todo el hogar de 7 a.m. hasta approx. 14:00.”

What a great sign to come home to last night. Wow, we are really on a roll this week with the utilities.

Yesterday it was the water freak out, and today “There is no electricity in the entire home from 7 a.m. until approximately 2 p.m.” Yay.

I’m writing this at 8:33 a.m. on my quickly dying laptop, and really, things could be worse. (Sidenote: For the first time in their lives, the Guatemalans were exactly on time. As soon as the clock hit 7:00, out went the lights.) Anyway – no, I won’t be doing much work today without a computer, internet, or way to recharge the camera, but I’ve actually been surprised at how easy it’s been to not have electricity (although it’s only been an hour and a half – so I guess I shouldn’t speak too soon).

So far, I have a serious new appreciation for:

-The thinly-curtained windows in our room. Normally, these let in every annoying speck of light while we are trying to sleep in, but today, that sunlight was crucial for getting dressed.

-And, our gas-powered stove! Normally, I almost have a heart attack every time I have to light a match and stick my hand into that flame of gas around the burner, but now, I think I realize that those stoves are actually pretty awesome.

Alright, time to save some battery power. See ya when the lights come back on!

No Hay Agua

No hay agua. There isn't any water.

This is about the last thing you want to hear in a home of 400 people who live, work, and play in the Guatemalan sun and dirt all day long.

But last night, we got a call from one of the girls in our house who had gotten word that a pipe had burst at NPH. "Start filling up everything you can find with water!! The water is going to run out overnight, and who knows when it will come back tomorrow! Hurry!!"

It turned out to be a false alarm. A pipe really did burst, but they fixed it right away. The water stopped working in a few places at NPH, but never in our house.

Still, haha, the life at NPH.

Buckets and buckets of agua.

Work, Play

I would consider myself a work hard, play hard kind of person.

I think that for the most part, I usually apply that mantra to most of my life adventures, and I think I would say that this Guatemalan adventure is no different. At least, I hope that’s how it will be.

I want this to be a year of hard work in my job – with my writing, with my reporting, with photography, with promoting NPH, and with just getting out there and finding what can be found.

But at the same time, I want this to be an incredibly fun year. I want new friendships and adventures and unbelievable stories to tell when I come back. I want to spend time with the kids here, as well as the other volunteers. I want to explore and understand this gorgeous – but crazy – nation, and relax in a year free from rent, life plans, and cubicles.

So, goal = balance work and play in Guatemala. Good. Hmm.

I realized right away that this adventure isn’t like study abroad. Studying abroad, I considered travel and food my top 2 priorities, and I considered homework or anything like it optional. (Ok, so not optional, but definitely last-minute. We all know I’m too much of a wuss to completely blow off assignments.)

I also realized right away that this isn’t a normal office job either. Yes, I have an office, an 8-5:30 schedule, and free coffee in the kitchen, but I’m not actually supposed to be working all day long. I’ve quickly learned that they don’t want me in the office all the time; they want me wandering around to find out what’s going on at NPH. I also can’t follow the “time is money” mentality anymore, because it doesn’t exist in Guatemala. Nothing moves quickly here, so I’m learning to fill my entire day with tasks that I normally could have churned out before 11 a.m. Frustrating? Yes. Surprisingly calming? Also yes.

So, it’s not study abroad, and it’s not an office job. It’s not all work, and it’s not all play. It’s some tricky combination. But luckily, the NPH volunteer program tries to help us out when it comes to finding the balance. Our “contract” involves both work and play, and here’s an idea of what is turning out to be our pretty busy schedule:

We have our jobs. As Home Correspondent, I am “in the office” Monday to Friday, from 8 to 5:30 – a 42.5 hour work week.

Additionally…

Twice a week, we need to eat dinner or spend time with our section for at least 2 hours.

Twice a month, every volunteer must complete a “family project.” It means we hang out with a family of brothers and sisters from NPH – making pizza, visiting the town of Parramos, watching a movie, really whatever they feel like doing.

Once every 6 weeks, all the volunteers get together to host a Kermes (or carnival) for the entire home – all 350 kids.

And then there is a whole slew of holidays and house events. Guatemalans love to celebrate everything in style.

As you can see, not a ton of free time! But, it’s exciting. January has started off slow with our schedules, but everything kicks into gear in February (which is already next week – whoa) with our first family projects and Kermes. The schedule is a little intimidating right now, but I know it will be fun.

A lot of work, but a lot of play. :)


P.S. Birmingham people, I almost titled this entry “Work, Play (not the venue in B’ham)” haha.