mi estomago lleno, corazon contenta

hello to all! i have made it safely to comitancillo, guate which is where i will be for the duration of my trip, aside from a few weekend jaunts. this phrase is a common guatemalan phrase that my host mother, hilda, taught me. it means my stomach full, heart content. comitancillo is a great little town and it took a lot to get us here. we left guatemala city the day of the death at volcano pacaya (which we saw the night before, lava and all) and spent the night in xela. xela is a pretty big city about 3 hours from comi and it is very popular for people to come to xela to learn spanish. they have intensive spanish classes and they are all over guatemala. there are about 16 UD students in xela this summer and we ended up running into two of them! it was great to hang out with some flyers down here. we will be returning to xela the weekend of the 12th to watch the Copa Mundial (world cup) so that will be fun. many guatemalans cheer for brazil, not mexico.

leaving xela in the pouring rain (it started POURING friday morning and stopped early this morning-over 48 hours of heavy heavy rain) we took a chicken bus to San Marcos. i was sitting next to a really interesting guatemalan who now lives in LA but was visiting family in Antigua. we talked for almost the entire 1.5 hour trip. i love being able to practice my spanish so much. he was really wise and made parallels between dancing and believing in God. kinda cool.

then we took another chicken bus, about 2 hours, from San Marcos to Comitancillo. I bought my first guatemalan merienda (snack) at the bus stop and they were yummy strawberry pie cookies. so i enjoyed them for the second bus ride. when we arrived in Comi, still rain pouring, we still had about a mile hike UP a hill. this would have been an intense walk with each of us having two bags, i have the giant travel backpack. luckily, not only was one of their red scooter taxis available, but somehow by an act of God, we fit our three bodies and all of our bags in this taxi. this taxi is no bigger than a golf cart. we are still amazed we all fit. thank goodness or we would have been severely wet.

after the taxi ride up the hill and lots of laughing, we arrived at Doña Hildas casa (¡yay for Spanish keyboards!) she is our host mom and hosts all of the people coming to help AMMID. we have our own clubhouse which is a room of bunk beds near an outdoor bathroom and shower (yes, i have to pee in the dark at night, it is so scary but im challenging myself to either be brave or try and fall back to sleep when i have to pee). the clubhouse is amid Hidas farm and she has every crop. it smells strongly of cilantro, which i love. they also have pigs oinking near us, making for a great summer ambience.

Hilda has three kids that I have met so far. Jorgina, 10, is an absolute riot. She is so goofy but talkative and fun. I love her relationship with Kevin, who spent last summer with her. Irbin, 15, is really nice, too. Much less talkative than Jorgina but very nice and considerate. I also met Armando who I think is 20, and we havent really talked. But, what a great family to have in my life this summer. Hilda cooks meals for us when we don’t want to eat in the village, and she is a great mom figure for this summer (Non, I miss you!).

During the rain yesterday, we walked into town (back down the giant hill) and met Lauren, who is doing healthcare work for the Peace Corp in Comitancillo. She is a great girl, very nice and seems to really love her volunteer job. She wants to help us with our water filter project, so I think this week we are going to go with her to meet potters to see who can help us make the pots. We also met Charlie who is the Peace Corp worker for AMMID. He is very nice, too, and he is also a Buckeye. GO BUCKS!

AMMID doesn’t open until Thursday, haha, so we will probably be slow to get things rolling with our work, but its ok because this gives us time to get to know the community and the people. Also, we are currently in a 3 day festival for Mary, so the town is hyped about that. There was supposed to be a desfile (parade) for the start of the festival yesterday, but that has been postponed till tomorrow. Kinda a fun way to start our time in Comi, though.

We just went to Sunday Misa (mass) this morning and that was a hoot. It wasn’t in the normal room, which is much bigger, so we were crammed into a smaller room, all standing. It overflowed into the outside where the market was going on. They had all these candles lit for Mary, which made things even hotter than the normal body heat of people standing next to each other. This had an effect on all the babies, I felt so bad for them, and many cried throughout mass. Luckily, mass is in Spanish and not Mam their Mayan language. Also, we gringos were so obviously gringo by our height alone. We, even I, towered over EVERYONE. I was taller than the tallest man at mass. And, it’s a hoot how people stare at us. Comi people are known for staring blatantly at gringos, so I just smile, say HOLA and then they giggle. Haha I love it.

My Mam phrase of the day (trying to learn a new one each day): Wah hey ka pey…This means I WANT COFFEE!!!

In the internet café and Hey Soul Sister is playing. Sigh, a bit of home. Don’t know how often I will get to Internet, but there are Internet cafes in the town. Sorry this was long but I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave me comments and let me know how you are doing, or send me an email!

As they say goodbye in Mam, koon hey (but you have to be really throaty with the pronunciation, haha, Mam is a very throaty language)

Koon hey,

Lowra Betty…Ñ¡¿ ooo I love Spanish keyboards