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today i feel like hell. my stomach hurts pretty bad (guatemala combined with drinking liters of cervaza). ill give it a couple days...they gave us little tubs to poo in if were sick for long, then they take it to a lab to find out what we have and tell a doctor and get you medicine...i dont want to poo in a tiny ass cup, can you imagine how hard and nasty and awkward that would be? one guys already done it, he has amoebas. anyway, i hope lunch doesnt have lime all over it. they put lime on freaking everything. i dont remember what ive already said in this blog, i dont take the time to reread and make sure...so sor. yea, so lime. lime on salad, corn, beets, broccoli, celery, soup...everything. so i figured a lot of my stomach issue is probably the acid so ive been eating pepto pills to try to help. it helped the other night. lessons are getting better, but i really need to study and memorize allt he vocab i have. its usefull vocab at least, like fruits, vegis, body parts, verbs. today we are talking a walk to another part of town, zona 3. i actually live in zona 3 but were on the line of zona 1 and 3. there is a stadium in zona 3 and a flower shop i think. did i mention there are wild dogs everywhere here. some people feed them, but they arent their pets. every house pretty much has a parakeet too in the smallest cage ever, and i dont think they ever let them out or touch them. there is a parrot today at the school in a tiny cage, i touched its foot adn it didnt try to bite me so who knows. sometimes people come in to the school courtyard to sell stuff. no one kicks them out, they just lay out their stuff and attempt to sell it. i looked at one today and may buy something but i dont know, need to look around. yesterday we attempted to go to yoga but passed right by the sign and ended up walking around in the rain and found it with help from our director and got there too late to do it...so we went home. last night we went out to eat at Salun Tecum, pizza and liters of brahva and cabro...it was fun. then we went to another bar called la rhumba, music was good, and a mixture of foreigners and locals. at first everyone was salsaing or whatever, who knows, then it changed to american music like YMCA and it turned into a mess. we didnt dance, just watched and chatted. it was fun! then we all walked home together for safety...though i brought my knife in case anyone decided to abduct me...ha...theyll be sorry they picked up this chicita! hahaa. anyway, im going to go to my casa and lay down for a while, maybe nap and then lunch. manana, una fiesta para los estudiantes de Somos Hermanos!

Finger it Out

So, before I left for here I sliced my finger with a cerrated knife while cutting flower stems...I was afraid it would get infected here, and it did, and is. Awesome. So tonight Im going to reopen the wound, clean the hell out of it, and hope it gets better. I really dont want to go to the doctor here...who knows what theyd do. Im sure the directors know someone to trust but id rather try it myself. Anyway, lesson today is going better. Learned parts of the body and moved on to irregular verbs which I also know but Im learning new verbs and words as we go. I need to buy notecards to go over each night in bed. Who knows if they sell those here. Ive started getting to know the city, well at least zona 1. I think there are 6 zonas...a couple I think they said we wont go to, I assume they are bad parts. Last night after dinner I brought out my pictures of my family and they said you were all very good looking! They said mom and dad looked young, too bad they didnt see a picture of dads new doo, cause then theyd think hes my brother! haha. I wanted to get up this morning and go to yoga but jill and i couldnt get a hold of eachother on the walkie talkies to arrange a meeting time, maybe the building block too much for reception. I didnt want to go the first time alone, and get lost alone, so Ill wait until tomorrow morning. Its from 650 to 750 am, and class at 830...waking up to work out has never been easy but i think since i get up that early anyways if i dont work out it should be ok. Tomorrow try again. Its really cold here in the morning...not enough to see your breath but still cold while sitting for 4 hours talking. They have tea and coffee at the school though so that helps a lot. Tonight we are going out for our first time with one of the other students at the school who has been here studying a long time, her name is June, shes oriental and super nice. Shes going to show us where to go out...well, were tagging along. Then next time were alone. What else...oh, my stomach has been feeling weird lately, as has many others...eating tons of beans will do that i think. i ate some pepto pills last night and i feel ok today. ahh barf, for lunch yesterday my host mother put this huge hunk of cheese on my plate with spaghetti and i was like, shit, i hate cheeses. so i tried it and it was sour and nasty as all hell like i thought so when they told me it was homemade i had to find out a way to tell them i couldnt eat it without offending them. so i told them some cheeses upset my stomach because in america we usually eat only chedder and milk is ok too...haha, well it worked and they understood, and after the little i ate my stomach hurt so it wasnt complete bullshit. cheese=barf. its break time now during lessons, everyone has tea or coffee and some snack that is made my the school family...today its something red with some white cheese im not eating. last night with beans and tortillas we had cooked banana...that was weird, didnt taste very good but tolerable, ate it all. anyway, must go back to lesson now...

1st lesson

my first lesson was LAME...went over regular verb endings in present tense...thats the shit I know and havent nor wont forget ever. also went through the alphabet letter by letter saying as many words as I could for each...4 hours of this...borrrrrinnggggg. lunch time.

Mas

So my first full day yesterday was great! For breakfast I had soupy as hell oatmeal with banana...pretty bland but still good, though not really filling. Then for lunch FISH soup! I thought it was chicken soup until I called it chicken soup and they said, no pescado...fish. But it still tasted like chicken. Though I didn't really want to eat the fish, I did, because that's what you do. This must have been the biggest fish ever because it had monster bones, hence why I thought it was chicken. Then after lunch (everyone goes home so the family can have lunch together) the directors took us on a tour of the city to see good restaurants, coffee shops, bars, landmarks, etc. This place is really neat. Though I can't wear any jewelry because people have been mugged and its best just to give them what they want, and it's often jewelry or watches or money of course. After walking around we stopped at a restaurant which overlooks a park in the center of the city for some beers. We ordered each kind of beer so we could get an idea of which we liked. Apparently Gallo has a monopoly here so even if you don't order it, they still get the money and the other beer tastes much like Gallo anyway. Then home for dinner, which was great, 2 tortillas with a strip of meat in it, black beans, and noodles with veggies and one shrimp. My family eats really healthy so i havent really had to eat anything gross. Yesterday was good, the night before that was so nerve racking and stressful. While my host father was talking sometimes id get lost thinking about holy shit im staring at a guatemalan and im in his home and im here for 6 months. it was so weird. then id have to ask him again what he said. i find that when im on the spot to speak spanish, my brain goes blank, like i forget the easiest words. though when others are talking i know whats going on and can help others...weird. but yesterday since i wasnt super nervous with the family i did better. in 10 minutes i start my first 4 hours of spanish lessons. after that lunch with the fam, then back to school for a movie. my room is cold, and my bed is a rock so last night i got creative and put my sleeping pad under my bottom sheet and my sleeping bag between my blankets for added warmth, it was great! anyway, must go, need to find out the name of my maestro! adios.

Xela

Hi Everyone! i have so much to write but i dont have time since were in an internet cafe and need to go back to the family for lunch at 130...then back to school at 230 to tour the zona 1. things are great! my family is great, more people than i thought. mom, rosa, dad, anibal, daughter, amelia, daughter, lucia, granddaughter, camila, son, forgot name, and family friend, yomadorr or something. the drive from guatemala city to xela took 5 hours but we stopped for lunch for an hour. this place i cannot describe. so amazing. huge hills covered in lush green, farms everywhere no matter how steep the terrain, dogs, horses, cows randomly on sides of streets. people laying around everywehre and selling stuff. a couple times we were so high up we were in teh clouds. by teh way, i forgot my m fing camera charger so ill have to figre that out soon. xela is a busy town surrounded by the awesome hills and volcano. its cloudy today and was yesterday. my house is nice, my room is good too. bathroom is outside...cold when washing my face at night. ate eggs, beans, and tortilla for dinner last night while the dad bombarded me with questions. i wanted to tell him i was excited and i used the word for sexually excited, so i basically told my host father i was horny...it was embarrassing but he understood i didn't mean that...hahhaa. today i will get a cell phone so i can call. tomorrow we begin lessons for 4 hours. ok, must go!

Bienvenidos a Guatemala!

Im here and the keyboard is already screwing with me. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to put the ´at` symbol to log into this blog...and now I struggle making caps cause there is the < key where the shift key should be! Im sitting in the atrium of the Hosteles Las Volcanes in Guatemala City...its raining but i love it. im not capitalizing anything anymore. slows my roll. ha. i am also drinking the bud light of guatemalan beers, gallo, or rooster i believe that means. i need my dictionary strapped to me, nahhhhh. the trip down here was successful though mexico city was a mess. we had a 3 hour layover and got to our gate with 15 minutes to spare because the airport was confusing as hell and one lady who worked there didnt even know the airline taca existed. so that was nice. when we checked in in houston it was funny to see that most of the people were half my height. then off to guatemala we went. i had a middle row so i couldnt see much but what i did see was awesome. you could see mountains covered in lush green with low lying clouds going in and out of them. guatemala city seemed pretty hilly too. the hostel is close to the airport so we didnt see much of the place. its a cute little hostel, i have nothing to compare it to but the people are friendly, theres lots of light, and this here computer with internet. and they sell beer at checkin for 16q. the rest of the clan, or most of them are upstairs in our 7 bed room, probably staring awkwardly at eachother. smart people are awkward. they probably think jill and i are crazy already cause we already bought a beer and have been talking like crazy. whatever, someone has to talk right (cant figure out how to put a question mark). so we stay here tonight and get picked up in the morning to go to xela. ive alread tried speaking a little spanish, basic things like hi, thank you, rain...jill is a little timid at trying. its funny. im like jill, you have to try. kinda strange when we got to guatemala city airport we went outside and no one was there waiting for us...we were expecting a sign for the hostel but nothing. so i look over and see a midget coming towards me on a skateboard and i smile and look away, then he says, miss, and holds up 5 pens for me to buy, so i smile and shake my head no. then 2 kids come by and ask me if were going to hosteles las volcanes and we say yes and all teh sudden the midget puts his pens away and pretend he works for the hostel too, asking us for their phone number...were like, uh no well wait for the dude with the sign. sketch. kinda funny though too. people kept giving the midget money too, but wouldnt take the pens...who knows. then we found out we were on the wrong level and the guy with the sign had been waiting for us forever upstairs...lo ciento muchacho! anyway, thats all for now, i should get back to the staring contest with the other members and relieve jill of doing the duty. haha. till next time...i love you all and im here safe.

Last Night

I LEAVE TOMORROW! 

I am excited, nervous, sad, ready, anxious, and can't believe I will be in a hostel in Guatemala City tomorrow afternoon and then my host family's the night after. NUTS. Fuckin' awesome. That's all I have to say for now...adios.