Preparation for the Experience of a lifetime

So now there are 12 days left before I leave for the Peace Corps! It is very hard to believe that this moment is so near after such a long application process. It is crazy how time has been flying by, it seemed like yesterday I was just back from Guatemala, and now I find myself racing to gather all of the things for my two year service. Que ridículo! So I have recently mustard the desire to diligently work on my blog. Which brings me to why I am writing right now. My blogging abilities while I was in Guatemala were pretty poor, but I think having that experience definitely drives me to work on it better. It’s incredible how fast you begin to lose memories of little experiences. So from now on I am going to try my best to keep you all updated.

My year after graduating from Muhlenberg College has been an interesting one to say the least. Many ups and downs, times filled with moments of massive amounts of work and times where I was aching to do anything haha. After Guatemala, it was nice to be home for a little while, however as they say waiting was the hardest part. I never really knew when I might be heading out or even I was going to be lucky enough to be selected for the Peace Corps. So I felt a bit constricted in terms of searching for a Job, but I also really wanted to travel to South America just in case the Peace Corps did not come through. So there I was living with my Mom and Dad again, which after practically 4 years of college being independent was an adjustment (basically getting readjusted to having my parents continually questioning what you’re doing and receiving advise about you should do this/that). However, my parents are great, and I feel lucky that they let me stay with them after college, because I don’t think I would have enough money to have my own place. It was really nice to be home for Christmas ( I haven’t missed one yet! So this upcoming year maybe the year). I had the opportunity to hang out with my brother for a quick second which is always since he works all the time.

The winter was definitely something to try and get used to again after being in Guatemala for 6 months. I have come to terms with the fact that I really do not enjoy the cold :P. It just happened that this winter was one of the coldest and longest in a very long time. It really seemed to go on forever. I am a person who needs the outdoors and sunshine. I know that is certain. However, it’s always nice to lay in bed with like 5 blankets with a book. My parents decide to get a puppy while I was home as well since our dog Midnight has passed away. When we went to pick up our new puppy, and it turns out they were just too cute and we couldn’t resist getting another one. Below are some of the pictures of our new family members: Chula y Guapo. They are a blast, and definitely made staying at home more exciting and a bit more work.

In March, I decide that two months of hanging around at home and volunteering in Allentown at Casa Guadalupe and The Caring Place was enough being around home. My urge to travel kicked up quick again and I really wanted to go experience something new. So I found the Cheapest flight I could get to South America, which happened to be to Ecuador. Considering I had two friends living in Quito, I thought why not. So I hopped on a US$390 there and back again flight to Quito. It’s pretty incredible the price of the flight, that is a ridiculous deal. I have found it is hard to get a flight in the states for that much. I went to Ecuador for two main reasons: To test my Spanish/take classes and also to test out what the experience of travelling alone would be like. In total, I spent a Month in Ecuador, and I barely even scratched the surface of the country. I travelled to Otavalo (1 day), Quito (8 days), Baños (4 days), El mitad del Mundo (1 day), y Canoa (12 days). Overall, I really enjoyed Ecuador, very interesting people overall, and extremely friendly. In my travels, I would just start up conversations with people of bus trips and countless times people provided me help with getting around, and even offered me places to stay.

I would have to say my experience with Ecuador was a great one, albeit a short one. However, by the end of my trip I came to learn that Peace Corps offered me a position in Ecuador. It was a bumpy road, but a great one. I have spent the last two months getting ready for the experience of a Peace Corps Volunteer. The puppies have gotten really big and are super energetic. Its been nice to wake up every morning to two black waging tails.

Other things over my time home: My 23^rd Birthday, Foals concert, working out, reading a ton, gave two talks at Muhlenberg, lots of rain!

It'll Next time.

Los Super Chivos

So I have been really terrible of keeping up with the blog, so Im going to recall as many stories as I can and fill them in as we go. Lo siento

So in Xela, to really integrate yourself, you have to become a super chivos fan. Guatemaltecos love their football. They really love it. This is the most excited I think I ever seen the people of Xela get. On game days, you can run into hundreds of people all decked out in their gear. So they are the super goats. After much dilberation and have a schedule caulk fill of activites, it seemed as though we were never going to get to share in the fun. Then the night came. We celebrated a little before hand to get in the mood for a rowdy crowd. Before heading to the game we had heard rumors from our field director ellie. She had apparently gone to a game before and ended up getting shot in the face with a bottle rocket! So we were prepared for an intense night.

We gathered all the gear we could afford, which included price haggling and such. So there we were headed to our first game, we could see people as far as we could see all pouring in for this game. People were cheering as loud as they could. One of our group had a drink with her and as we were entering the security stopped her and we all thought she was going to get into big trouble. However, it turns out that they just wanted to give her a plastic bag to put her wine into. Yes we were all as shocked as well. Oh no miss the guy came running after hes your drink ahah. We could see rowdy soccer people had already filled the stands and were cheering and doing all the normal chants. WOOOOOOO XELA WHOO WOOOO XELA WHO!! and so many more.

At first we were a bit apprehensive about whether or not we should dive in with the hooligans. Or if they would even accept us into the crowd. It could some courage from Rachelle to hop in and then come get me to hop in. It was insane, the next moment I knew we were all jumping and chanting and sharing in the merry making with all the Local die hard fans. And I must say they were loving it. Or rather they were loving rachelle's craziness in the crowd, it was really impressive she was meeting people left and right, but I pretty sure if I was a good looking extranero they would have accepted me in the crowd the same. However, they were awesome, they were showing me all the chants and hand signs and really getting us into it. There was so much energy. So indescribable. I loved every second of it. The game was super close and the super chivos finally pulled out the win at the end. The fans all went nutz and were shooting fire works off. They even let me hold the flag and wave it in pride. That night I felt like a really Guatemalteco from Xela. It was wonderful.

Sorry for the Delay, lets talk about Oaxaca

So, recently I have been very poor with my upkeep of my blog, but with a renewed vigor Im going to start writing in this bad boy again.

So we set off on our trip to Oaxaca mexico( that if you follow the news was just hit with an ungodly amount of rain, which led to landslides of incredible measure and buried somewhere around 500 houses in various towns) in microbus, we crammed all of our luggage into the small microbus, which is basically a van, which guatemalans find the ability to fit 25 people in at times. So there we were heading into the Sina loa gang run area of the Guatemalan border. We were just about to make our first crossing of borders in central america. It was an experience to say the least, approaching the border was like throwing food to ants (not to be insulting), but the moment we all stepped off of our micro to get exit stamps, where were swarmed by people trying to change money with us, people trying to lead us away from where we needed to go, and people like always trying to sell us something. All of the money exchangers, were giving ridiculously horrible rates of exchange. We all decide to just wait it out. We received our exit stamps and walked our way to the entry station of mexico.
There was a natural divide between the borders which was a huge river. It reminded me of the trip that many migrants must make in order to travel to the states to find work. The book Enrique's journey elaborates much on the hardships that they all must experience. I did not stop to take a photo since we were surrounded by people trying to sell us things and exchange money.
Once across the border all of us had our bags searched and then we were back in the micro for the rest of our 6 hour journey to Tapachula from Xela, our next destination to catch a bus to Oaxaca. A thirteen hour bus. Luckily, we were not on a chicken bus, and it was a coach style bus. It was moderately comfortable....as comfortable as a 19 hour ride on buses could be.

The Cast


When we arrived in Oaxaca, we were immediately paired off and sent with hour family homestays for a week. My buddy ryan and I were paired together, and we were picked up.....oddly in a Subaru. This was a little more than I was expecting, because the fmaily home stay I have had in guatemala is most likely on the lower section of middle class and they do not own a car. We arrived at our new mothers home. My mouth literally dropped, because we were staying in a mansion. It was a georgous home, with private bathrooms and a huge area for lounging with every channel immaginable. For a little while, I thought i was dreaming and there was no way possible that this could be where we would be staying for the next week.

The attitude that we were given before coming to Oaxaca was much different what we actually experienced. Majority of us thought it was going to be dangerous and similar to guatemala, mostly inpart to the movie that our program showed us before we left. It was an interesting film about the teachers protests in the city of Oaxaca, which led to a large amount of government repression by Mexico and hit squads that eliminated certain leaders of the protest for more monies for students books, etc. The citizens of Oaxaca set up road barricades and it ultimately led to the intervention by military forces to stop the protests. This set the mindset that where we were headed was going to be quite intense.

The truth was quite different, Oaxaca was a gorgeous city, with a very vibrant culture, and many cafes and tons of great places to go and hang out. There was also an awesome market that had a section that was completely dedicated to smoked meat as there was just meat hanging everywhere. It was pretty interesting.

One of the first days went to the ruins of Monte Alban. It is one of the oldest ruins in central america with an origin around 500BC. Monte Albán had an estimated population of 17,200 making it one of the largest Mesoamerican cities at the time. This massive site was truly incredible and definetly had the awwwsnap factor to it. It had that mystical sense to it, that I have grown to truly enjoy. There was also an incredible view of Oaxaca from the ruins.




















Right to bottom: ruins, Old Bball court....where the losers were scarificed, mystical pic, Somos hermanos....jamz



There was also an incredible church, that Ryan, Ann and myself went to check out. The Church of Santo Domingo is impossible to miss, as it is directly in the center or the city. The monastery was active from 1608 to 1857. In front of the entrances there are huge patches of agave plants. That in my mind is very reminiscent of the childhood video game Zelda. The building its self was magnificent and so beautiful. Inside they have a huge museum, which was definitely one of my favorite parts of our trip to Oaxaca. There were so many relics of the history there and a huge botanical garden that was most likely 200 years old and very impressive. The old walls of the monastery just had that feel of you know they have so many years. In their library there was books literally 100s of years old. Old surgery manuals and such that I found particularly interesting.

Right to left:
Overlooking the court yard, The ceilings, the awesome garden







Santo Domingo and Zelda like agave









We spent much time exploring Oaxaca and the various attractions that the city had to offer. One of the first nights out we went to a bar of a friend of our field coordinator ellie who is super cool! and there was a traditional Mexican band that was playing the local music, but and one member was playing a horse skull. I have never seen that before haha. The music was awesome and the experience equally awesome. The band was the Family Raices. All of their music was political to some extent, but was extremely enjoyable and totally unique, unlike anything I have ever heard, the mother and daughter stomped on a wooden box to the beat, was a form of salsa but making music at the same time...totally legit.

Also, while we where there it was approaching the bicentennial of independence of mexico, so every night there were various parades and different events going on. The whole atmosphere of Oaxaca, was dare I say it, much more exciting than Xela. The culture seemed so vibrant and so many people took so much pride in their country. It was something else to witness.

One of the night festivals !









One day we had a real cultural experience with a traditional medicine man...er woman....i guess...it was a very interesting procedure. It was known as a cleansing to remove the bad chi from your body....well it wasnt chi, just something similar. I wasnt sure if she was playing a joke on us, but i couldnt help but smile a bit, even if it wasnt culturally sensitive. The shaman was literally smacking us with ferns.....and for some reason smacked me especially hard in the groin.....guess she thought i needed cleansing, but who knows, it was interesting. She then proceeded to blow intense smoke into our faces that had some old tree sap in it. I felt like I prolly became sicker after the whole process since i couldn't breath, but I was relaxed....or just extremely lightheaded. Not sure haha

For your enjoyment,












Another day we traveled to the Milta Ruins, which were equally impressive. The city itself had such an old presence and was very alluring we were all very sad to have to leave, but as always, Es la Vida.

old aqueducts y calles









All in all I truly enjoyed our time in Oaxaca, except for the part where our tour guide hit a speed bum going like 60 mph and slammed my head into the roof of the van.....well i recieved the least of it, my buddy ryan was bleeding from the head after that.


ES LA VIDA

Sean

THE WORST PAIN EVER

So in the past few weeks I've had my nice run-ins with stomach issues. Around the second week in Xela, I started to experience some diarrhea, which was pretty fun in itself. Although, I have been extremely careful in terms of what I eat and drink and make sure to wash my hands throughly. I had some rumbles in the jungle. However, I thought that possibly it could have been just adjusting to the diet of Guatemala, which is high amounts of sugar and carbs, something totally opposite of what I typically experience back in the states. After a week of toilet struggles, I started to feel much better and thought it must have just beenthe food here. Then while on an excursion to a AID/TB hospital, I started to feel some extreme urges to go to the bathroom, so I went, but afterwards I started to feel some extreme pain. I sat down on the curb and looked around. I said to everyone I should prolly go home, the pain was so intense. I drank water, and tried to do anything I could to make it stop. I could not even stand up the pain was so intense.
Soon I found myself shaking out of pain and turning a nice pale coloration. I was drinking gatorade at the time and I found myself crushing the bottle to divert my mind from the pain, which was only getting worse. Finally, a my friends Rachel and Jimmy decided to take me in a cab home. While in the cab, I found i was gripping the seat so hard the leather was cracking under pressure as the pain continually worsened. Then rachel and jimmy made an executive decision to take me to the hospital.
Our driver began to run red lights and speed through the tiny streets in an attempt to get me to the hospital as soon as possible. We pulled up and I hoped out of the car and was taken into the emergency room. The hospital was much dirty than that of a standard american hospital, but it seemed as though all the tools they used were sterile. I made sure of that. i was put in an old rickety wheel chair which jimmy found a delight to push me with. I took a nice stool sample and waited an hour for the results. All the while, the pain was steadily increasing to a point where I couldnt take it. It hurt so much, and there was nothing I could do.
Even though the pain was so intense, I couldnt help but think how good of a bad experience this was since I was recieving a first hand experience of the health care system in guatemala, while also experiencing the pain that tons of patients go through in a years span, and even those who succumb to GI disorders.
Back to the experience at hand, so the pain was so intense at one point that i could feel my body needed to produce any kind of relief from the pain. This was the first time I have ever in my life vomited from pain alone. I can safely say it is an experience I would only like to have once. After that momentary lapse in pain, which i believe was primarily mental, like a biting a finger to ingore a shot, the pain returned once more. Finally, my results arrived and the young doctora notified be that I have amoebas and they most likely caused an intense intestinal infection which is why I was experiencing a pain that could only be described as if someone had reached into my body grabbed my intestines and started to crush and twist them.
The young doctora told me she could give me a muscle relaxant that would take away the pain. At that point, I would have gone sky diving to get rid of the pain. Then she told me it was an intravenous shot. Reluctantly, I said yes and the next thing I knew a nurse, who really didnt seem like she knew was she was doing, was sticking a big needles into my left vein. The pain I experienced from the shot was almost as bad as the pain I was experiencing in my stomach. It really felt as though it lasted forever...all i could do was squeeze my hand in relation. Then I could feel the sweetness of the shot as the pain in my intestines subsided. Then i went home to sleep for a very long time.... To this day it is the worst pain I have experienced........it was treated with anti-parasitic and antibiotics.

That was my first encounter, my second resulted in me experiencing 9 diarrhea episodes a day for a week until i went get lab results done, which indicated I had high yeast and an intestinal infection.....I like to call this round two. Which I am currently treating. We'll how it goes.

The epic Benjamin induced bike ride

Yesterday, Ben( tallest kid in our program) from san Francisco suggested that this morning we go for a bike ride. I was all about it. There were 3 of us in total who went. Ben, Ryan, and myself. The bikes we rented from vrisa were pretty shitty, but they worked and only cost Q40 for a days use. Even though I inspected mine and tried out the brakes, I should have tried them out on a hill ahah because they were terrible. This made the ride in Xela that much more exciting.....
So we set out around 8 am this morning and after some hilarious troubles with directions that led us in a gigantic circle we were off onto a trail that spanned through the mountains. The scenery was spectacular and the air was so nice in comparison to the city...ahhh fresh air haha. The air pollution in Xela is crazy. The roads up through the mtns were pretty tough... or atleast a little harder than I expected and were covered with alot of mud which forced up to step off the bikes and walk...my white shoes are now brown ahah. It was completely worth it though. The trip was great. It was initially supposed to take 3-4 hours round trip....total understatement...We rode into two towns on the outskirts of Xela. The first I forget the name of, but the second was Zunil. In the first town we had to navigate through a gigantic market with our bikes, which was a pretty funny sight since we were the only gringos in the town at the time. We then saw a main attraction of a huge pile of garbage at the bottom of the hill, which made me think what a shame the natural beauty of the area was being trashed.
In Zunill, we checked out the main attraction of a church that was first built in 1529. It is so crazy to see such building since they have stood and been around longer than the entire history of the US.
After checking out Zunil, we rode a little further and came upon hot spring. There we chilled in a sauna for about an hour and they were rediculously hot! It was awesome though and a great experience. After a king's lunch for 8 us dollars we grabbed a bus back to Xela. The overall trip took around 8 hours haha.....5 more hours than we had expected, but totally enjoyed every moment.

Mt. Baul

July 17th
On the outskits of Xela one can find Mt. Baul, it is one of the many peaks that surround this beautiful city. Our school, El Mundo en Espanol, sponsored a little excursion out to the peak of this mountain which really was not all that tough or much of a struggle at all. It was a nice little stroll that had a dead dog on it, which was interesting. Each person in the Somos Hermanos familia went on this nice little hike. The hike could not have taken more than say an hour to reach the top, but it provided some wonderful views of the city. The trip up our guide Jorge, suggested that we take the short cut up, which included an interesting wire rope ( literally I believe it was a telephone wire that had been finished its usefullness and someone thought it would make a great wire to be used to pull people up the side of steep mountain. The wire was very strong but frayed at certain points, needless to say I was happy that I had a tentus shot before I left. Once we made our way to the top we were able to reap the beautiful views of Mtn Baul...simply georgous.

The troubles of changing money in Guate

So I have found that changing money in Guate can be quite annoying because it typically leads to a fun hour long event. One particular little journey I had was at a local bank in which it took almost 2 hours to change my American express travelers checks. While in the bank, I began to hear all of these loud cracking and explosion noises that were coming from outside. I looked at the teller who then looked back at me with an unconcerned facial expression and kept going on about her buisness which by the way was taking so long. Everyone looked like they didnt know what the hell they were doing....that was a bit worrisome. The explosions continued outside, and having been spending the past few weeks learning about the horrors of guatemalan history....i was a tad concerned to say the least.
So there I was taking out a decently large amount of cash and there were explosions outside, all i could think was no way, how in the world the first time i go to change money could this bank be robbed or there be a small uprising or something crazy like that. But considering the guards which were holding automatic rifles did not seem to concerned I just went about my business.
When I arrived home I asked my abuela about what those explosions could possibly be and she told me that it was the day of the nino or of baby jesus. I thuslearned that guatemalans love explosions and blowing things up with large and small poppers which kinda sound like bombs ahah. It was a funny experience to say the least.