Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain

I thought I loved the rain. The rain always gives me the opportunity to be lazy, which is a hobby of mine. The rain always lets me sleep with the soothing sounds of water falling on my window. The rain evokes me to think about meaning and understanding of my life and others. I have always been the person who was excited for it to rain. While the rain would be a hassle for others, I would be smiling, inside and out.

My values have changed. It been raining since I arrived in Guatemala, which was almost 6 months ago. Now I was warned of the “rainy season”, so I wasn’t caught off-guard by all this rain. I was, however, caught off-guard by my reaction. Reasons I don’t like the rain here in Guatemala:

1.     I am always wet. My hair, my clothes, my skin, etc…I am never wearing the right shoes. I don’t want to wear hiking boots (which are my rain shoes) to school every day. I am trying to look professional.

2.     It’s so much more slippery. Now I am clumsy, but with the rain I fall even more. The dirt gets packed down, and then turns a shade of green. The shade of green means that it is very slippery. I get so many more looks when I walk on the slippery, packed dirt, because I am concentrating hard and going very slow.

3.     My clothes are never dry. Since I don’t have a dryer or a washer, my clothes must dry outside. And 60 degrees with hard rain is not a suitable environment for clothes to dry.

4.     Not being able to leave my town or go to school. The reasons being mudslides, cresting rivers, etc…

5.     I can’t enjoy this beautiful country as much as I want to. I go outside less, which is some ways is kind of nice, but mostly is absolutely awful.

6.     Boredom.

I have come to this conclusion over the past week. This week has been very rainy! On Tuesday, I woke up and it was raining hard! In Guatemala, it never rains in the morning, only in the afternoon and night. On Tuesdays, I have my school in Pasajquim, which is 1.5 hours away by mini-bus. It is a very long ride, with very bumpy, dirt roads. On Tuesday, I was worried about my ride, if it was raining in the morning; I hope the roads are okay.  The rain stopped, and I went to school. When I got home at 5, it started to rain hard. As I went to bed that night, the rain was so loud. I had to use earplugs to be able to sleep. I woke up on Wednesday, and it was still raining hard. Hello, Tropical Depression 12-E! Not good. Wednesday, we had no electricity until about 1. Schools were canceled, and Peace Corps put us on Standfast. (Standfast means that I can’t leave Santa Clara.) I taught UNO to my family, and we played for about 3 hours. The electricity finally came back on, and I could charge my phone (I was down to one bar, which isn’t good in situations like these). On Thursday, classes were cancelled again. Yesterday, I was supposed to have a Peace Corps meeting in Sololá, which I was looking forward to, and that was cancelled.

Now I come to boredom. What have I done with all this time? Well I have played UNO with my family. Tried organizing all my papers, which I didn’t finish. I have spent a lot of time on the Internet. What have I been watching? Well I downloaded Modern Family, Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Office. In the movie department, I watched V for Vendetta (Occupy Wall Street reminded me of this awesome film), Horrible Bosses twice, and I am currently downloading Magnolia. I have finished one book, and am halfway through the next one. Could I have done some work, yes! I am so bored, that can’t see myself doing any.  It’s not logical at all. I hope to do some today, but I don’t have a lot of faith in myself in this area.

I haven’t seen blue skies in I don’t I know how long. I haven’t seen the sun since Monday or Tuesday. I might be having affects of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). I am trying to enjoy the lovely sound of rain, but it gets difficult when it’s all you hear. I know walking to my mirador of the lake would really boost my spirits. However, it’s raining, and it’s too cloudy to see Lago de Atitlan anyway. This rain is supposed to end soon, so I will get my lake view in a couple of days. And no pictures have been taken this week, because I didn’t want to get my camera wet.

And, I should mention this. There have been many mudslides, cresting rivers, falling rocks, etc with this particular storm. Right now, even if I wanted to go to San Juan, Sololá, or Xela, I couldn’t.  So many people have been affected by this storm. There have been more than 20 deaths. I don’t have it that hard; I am just bored and dealing with a small case of SAD. There are people who have lost their family members, homes, cars, and businesses all in a matter of days. I am keeping those people in my thoughts and trying to be positive about their future.

Anyway, I know that by early April, I will be saying “Where is the friggin’ rain???? I want it!” The grass is always greener on the other side.

Paz y Amor.

Parties and Teaching

What to write about this week? Well last week, my family had a birthday party for my two sisters. They told me about it about two days before, and I already had plans to go to Pana, but they kept hounding me and I was guilted into going. It actually ended up being really fun. It started at 2, and ended at like 6. It was nice just to watch the kids play. I led an awesome game of musical chairs, they really liked it! My host sisters, Andrea and Vivian, each had kids over from their classes, they had their own cakes, and they got some awesome gifts. (I got them each some nail polish!) It was also really nice to be able to bond with the adults in my family. For example, I bonded with my host dad's mom. Who I thought only spoke Quiche. Nope, she speaks awesome Spanish. After an awesome dinner of Tamal and Coke, I crashed into bed.

Let me explain what Tamal is. In other parts of the country and the world, it is called Tamales, but in my family in Santa Clara, it is called Tamal. So you place rice, a piece of chicken, and some sort of sauce inside a big leaf. I can't remember the name of the plant, but I remember what it looks like. (I am being a bad Peace Corps volunteer now, not remembering an important part of Guatemalan culture!) Then they wrap the leaves and cook all the Tamals together. For instance, at the birthday party, they cooked a lot of them. They were put in a very large pot (I probably could have sat in the pot, that's how big it was!). And the pot was placed under the wood burning stove.

Finished product! So delicious!

This week I also had the volunteer leader of Youth Development, Jessica, come and help straighten out my life. She came on Monday, and because of our meeting, I now have a lot of new ideas for the future. Well the reason why I am writing this was I wanted to make a point that I had a great morning, so I can write about my afternoon. So I went to my school here in town, and I had three charlas to give. My charla with Primero (1st in middle school, like 5th or 6th grade) went well, as well as it could go with Primero. Then came Segundo. Ahh Segundo. At this school, there are two classes of Segundo, so I put them together to give them the charla. Well these classes do not like to go into the other room for some reason. Whenever I tell them "Ok, let's go to Segundo B's classroom", they stare at me and each say "No quiero (I don't want to)". This same thing has happened for the past three weeks, so when it happened again this week, I was not going to let it slide. I went into Segundo A's classroom, and told them to come. They didn't. I went back a couple minutes later, and they were just chatting and now staring at me. I told them that "I don't have time for these games" and "I am the teacher, you all are the students" in my strictest, bitchiest voice. I was so mad! And then some of them still wouldn't come to the other classroom, so the director had to come and get them move! The director!

So after 10 minutes everyone was finally in the same classroom, and I could give my charla. It didn't go well. It was a charla on self-esteem, and I was going to do the activity where you have a piece of paper with your name at the top, and you pass the paper around, and your classmates write nice things about you. When I did this activity in middle school, like 12 years ago, I kept it for years. I would look at it when I was having a bad day, and it would help me feel better. Basically, it helped me raise my self-esteem. Because of this, I was so excited to do this activity with my kids. Well the problem was that instead of writing positive messages, some students were writing mean things about one another. I was so disappointed in them and a little in myself. In middle school you already have low self-esteem, now these kids are going to have lower self-esteem, because of what the mean ones wrote, and partly because of me, because this is my activity. I had no way of knowing which kids were the ones writing the bad words, but I would suspect the boys. I had to get some responsible girls to help me cross out words like "Diablo" (devil), and write words like "bonita". At the end of the activity, I gave a small lecture on the importance of being nice to your classmates, and how disappointed I was in the students who chose to be mean. I also said more on the importance of silence and respecting the teacher. It's not like most of them listened, but at least I said it.

This school is my worst, as far as discipline goes, and I have a lot of work to do in that area. Work with the students, teachers, and parents regarding discipline. My time at Catholic school, most notably St. Ann's, is coming back in a major way. While I hated my time at St. Ann's, and I still think that they were way too strict on middle schoolers, it was very disciplined. I want all of my kids from that Segundo classroom to go to St. Ann's and get a lesson in discipline. With homework slips, being quiet, and walking in straight lines. I know that I was lucky to go to St. Ann's, not to say that my Mom and Dad didn't have trouble paying for my sister and I. (It was expensive!) But I did have that opportunity. My parents really cared about my education. Not to say that the parents here don't, but there are different priorities. However, just because I did got to a strict, kind of expensive, Catholic school, doesn't mean that I don't think every child deserves that type of discipline. Especially in this culture, where education isn't has highly valued as it is in the States.

I never would have thought that I would be a teacher in a foreign country. Chelsea, a teacher? The jury is still out on the verdict there. But I am trying my best, and trying to improve my patience with my kids. But it was because of my education and the discipline I have that I was able to get here, and I want all of my students to know that. I didn't fly here with my own money. I flew here because I was qualified, because I had discipline with my studies. (Side note: Whoa, I am turning into my Dad, with the focus on "You need more discipline" and "You need to focus on your studies".)

Here are some pictures from the past week(ish):

Guatemalan women preparing food for the birthday party. 

Sunset in Santa Clara :)

Birthday girl, Andrea

Birthday girl, Vivian!

Me and my host parents

Paz y Amor