Piñata = piñata

The month of January has by far been the craziest so far. It’s been by far the best, and sadly, the worst too. I’ve only made it halfway through, and I’m already tired! This year started out with a New Years trip to Panajachel, a town on Lake Atitlan about 7-8 hours away from where I live. We met up with almost everyone from our training group to hang out and celebrate, and fun was had by all.

We arrived at the lake the day before NYE, and immediately got to the point of the whole weekend: boozing. I ended hanging out with the East girls most of the evening, and by the end night, we somehow found ourselves in “Jack’s Nigth Club.” That’s right, “Nigth” Yikes. We thought it was a dance club, but much to our surprise, we had inadvertently ended up in a strip club! Not exactly the place a girl wants to be, especially when the cops came in and patted down everyone there. What a night. The next day, some of the girls and I went on a boat ride around the lake, and it was so beautiful. Quite the relaxing afternoon, eating, shopping, and getting ready with the girls to go out that night. For New Years, we went to a local bar, where we hung out, made new friends, and general caused a ruckus. The bar had FIRE DANCING early in the evening, so that was pretty fun to watch. The next day, I layed around in bed with Lexi all day, eating Chinese food and watching movies. It was great.

After New Years, I got the best late-Christmas present ever. My friend, Nick, came to visit, and we had such a good time. He came out to the East to meet my family, and actually did pretty great talking to my family in Spanish, even though he hadn’t spoken Spanish in about 6 years. They loved that I brought him out to visit, and spent almost the whole time making fun of me in front of him. He also met my boss, which was a little scary, but my boss surprise visited me for an evaluation, so there wasn’t much of an option. Nick and I also visited Antigua and Panajachel again, and we had an amazingly relaxing time. One of the highlights of the visit was doing ziplines across the mountains overlooking Lake Atitlan. The views were amazing, and it was a lot of fun. I was a great visit, and I’m so happy I got to see a friendly face from home.

The down part of the last few weeks has been mostly to do with my job, and some to do with Peace Corps. After my evaluation with Sal, I was excited to start working, since it seemed like both my boss and counterpart were inspired to start helping me out and really get the ball rolling on my projects. Since Sal has left, though, things haven’t moved quite as quickly as I would’ve liked. I think I’m going through what most Volunteers go through at some point, in feeling like I’m useless and unwanted. I know it’s also timing, since I’m at the 5-month point, and really starting to miss home. After a rough few days, though, I got a pep-talk from my sister, and I’m ready to make my own changes and take charge. I know that to be happy here, I have to find my own way, and I’m taking that challenge with gusto in the new year. The other sad news we got is that Peace Corps National has decided to not continue the program I am part of at the same level, and will be slowly phasing it out. Although this won’t affect me, it does make one wonder about how effectual their projects will be if Nationals hasn’t seen effects enough to continue it. Ah, well, I guess that’s just a challenge to make my project MORE sustainable and MORE meaningful. I’ve gone to talk to some teachers here, and they seem helpful enough to want me to come to the schools, so at least I have something to plan for.

At the end of this month, I’ll also be allowed to move out, and I am SO EXCITED. Although I love love love my family here, and I’m sure I’ll be over often to visit, it will be nice to have my own house, where someone doesn’t start blaring music at 6:30am, and kids don’t stack chairs in front of my door for me to run into when I come out. I’ve started looking for houses, but the houses in San Diego are actually a little nicer than I can afford, and bigger than I need. I’m still hoping though, and awkwardly asking every single person I run into.

Oh! I almost forgot to add the story of Angel Omar’s birthday party!!! Angel Omar is my host sister’s son, and he turned 2 this past week, warranting the biggest party I’ve ever been to in my life. We worked the whole week before, hand-making intricate invitations and goodie bags. It felt like every second was cutting, gluing, and glittering. The night before the party, Friday, began the real work though. My madre had dropped a few hints throughout the week about how I would have to help “picar” (chop) some veggies with them for the party. I’ve helped cook here a good bit, so I didn’t think much of it. Boy, was that silly. At around 8pm, just as I had straightened up my bed to crawl in with the new episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I hear my madre shout my name. When I walked outside of my room, I saw a line of aunts, cousins, and nieces walk in the door, each with their own knife, ready to start peeling and chopping. I don’t know if I can explain in words how much we cut without sounding like I’m exaggerating, but it took about 10 of us 4 hours to chop the vegetables, and we STILL weren’t done! We chopped pounds and pounds of potatoes, carrots, beans, and onions. (I actually was the only one to chop onions and NOT cry…I’m such a badass.) After that, I helped madre with the chicken rub and marinade, and then finally, FINALLY crawled into bed……….only to be woken up at 5am by the traditional birthday fireworks and loud music. After getting up to sing and drink café, I actually got my lazy butt back in bed and slept for 2 more hours, despite the noise. My madre gave me shit about it later, but I told her if I could sleep through all that noise, I probably needed it. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed chopping up the cabbage and beets. What a shame. The rest of the morning was spent in preparations, putting up decorations, cooking mind-boggling amounts of food, and filling piñatas with candy. Although the party started at 3, in typical Guatemalan fashion that’s when everybody started elbowing to get in line for the shower, and about an hour later, guests started showing up. Among those guests, two of my Chiquimula friends, Lexi and Kristen, and my sitemate, Brynna, came over too. For the first 45 minutes, everyone sat around in a huge circle while they blared music over the comically big, rented sound system. After that, Omar started the dancing competitions and such for the kids. My friends gamely joined in too, and all the Guatemalans laughed while they tried to blow up balloons and then pop them with their butts. Kristen won. Guess she must be the most full of air. Next were the piñatas, and I have never seen grown people go so batshit crazy in my entire life. Only the kids get to hit the piñatas, obviously, but everyone, including the adults, thow bows to fight for the candy. I was the official photographer, and I got over 300 pictures, but was almost trampled in the process. Afterwards, the gringas and I helped serve all 200 people enchiladas (not the kind you find in a Mexican restaurant) cake and ice cream, and then picked up all the trash later. The work was totally worth the delicious cake. When all the little kids and their families left, we celebrated Jhonny’s birthday afterwards. Jhonny is my oldest host brother, and turned 25. The girls and I joined the old men in boozing, and later started a dance party with some other girls from my town our age. It was a lot of fun, but we were all tired at the end of the night, and ready for bed. What a day.

Ok, that’s all.