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So Christmas in Guatemala is pretty amazing, I think that even though they don´t have snow, or much of Santa, I would say they outdo us in celebration. The custom here is called MediaNoche, which means midnight, and everyone cooks this big dinner and waits up till midnight when fireworks from every house explode simultaneously. It´s cool enough to see big fireworks from the end of a town pier or roof of the Muni, but to see them from every street corner and roof of every house blew my mind. It´s got to be yet again the most dangerous thing of life, but never the less the 10 year olds and myself put things ablaze into the air 5 feet from telephone poles and other electric or flamable things in the street.
I look forward to repeating this for New Years as well.
As far as the tradition goes, I went to a Catholic Church for the night service with Doña Dora and at midnight they light incense and put the baby Jesus in their nativity scenes.
Oh! and the best part was the next day when Diego came by to see this parade of people dressed in different animal costumes do a line dance in the street. It was awesome, there were two GIANT panda costumes twice as big as the people inside, and kids in little dog costumes too, costumes of Gizmo, Sonic the Hedgehog, Skunks, a Furby, Chipmunks, Reindeer, and more. Quite an eclectic mix, and they all had these huge costume heads on. My favorite was the Lion from Robinhood (the King from the cartoon version) It was either a kid inside or a very small person, who danced like there was no end yet obviously could not see out of the extremely large costume head they had on and had to look around confused after bumping into the guy infront and behind in the line formation, fix his head back, and continue dancing like nothing happened. I can´t explain it, I wish I had video, and I definately had a better time watching this than Diego did.
Happy New Year to everyone, Peace,
Robin

My very own Christmas

So I'm here in San Bartolo where it feels much more like Christmas as it's freezing... Got to go to the Peace Corp office and pick up a package from over a month ago and get some stuff straight with work. Friday was the last day of work until the new year at my Muni, and we had a Convivio that night which is basically a Chirstmas party for everyone who works for the Municipial. I have a secret santa which I bought a sombrero for, and recieved much needed bowls and glasses from my SS as well. There was lots of singing to Ranchero music, a mariachi band, games, speeches, and food. The next day on Saturday was awesome. I woke up to my mailman calling me from outside my house with a package (shout out goes to Suzy Smith) and I made breakfast and opened the santa box. After that I washed all my sheets and underwear on my concrete pila, which isn't so exiciting as much as it is just an accomplishment. Around lunch Gabriel and Tia Neldy came by and we cooked lunch and hung out together. Then Saturday night I had my Christmas, I put on a holiday cd, the pajamas from my grandmae, and sat in front of my tree to open the gifts my family had sent. I have to say that for being alone, it really was a great time. I tried out everything and just had a nice time celebrating in my own way. I am glad to be here in San Bartolo with my Guatemalan family, but I just needed to have a little american celebration of my own. Thanks again for everyone who has sent a gift, card, email, phone call, or anything else. Feliz Navidad and Happy New Year.
Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men (and women)
Robin

Christmas is coming..

All the other volunteers from Spain, Austria, and Italy are leaving for Christmas, some are returning but I remain, haha. Sounds grim, but I hope it´s not that bad. The wonderful packages my family has sent me help so much and before they left the Spanish Volunteers bought me a small fake christmas tree and covered it in blue lights that flash randomly. I put my presents under it and pasted the Christmas cards on the wall above it. I couldn´t wait and I already opened a package that was a pair of very soft pajamas from my grandmae.
She also sent homemade Snickerdoodles! which I am taking with me to our Bienvenidos party this weekend so that I don´t eat them all at one time by myself. I did already eat 2 and they are delicious. I do have two Christmas CDs, and one more with the NOW! Christmas that my mom sent, so I guess it is starting to feel like that time of the year although the weather still throws me off a little. I miss everyone back home, and my advice is to spend the holidays with your family because I can´t.
Peace, Love,
Robin

Confused once again...

So I´ve given into the fact that I never know whats going on here, a lot of which I´ll blame on my lack of Spanish, but sometimes I think they just don´t tell me as if I´m magically going to guess what were doing... So Monday I had on my schedule that we were doing something with the women´s office. I knew we were going somewhere, which I assumed to be an Aldea (small rural community) which I thought was to build a playground because they had showed me pictures of this other playground they built in another Aldea. I knew to bring tennis shoes and jeans/tshirt attire. What I didn´t know was that we were actually going to a camp called La Tule to do team building activities with kids from the 4 surrounding areas for the next 2 days. This involved crawling under peoples legs, the human knot, trying to stand 19 people on a platform the size of a pizza box while being sprayed with a water hose, climbing a whole team over a 20 ft wall, climbing a jacobs ladder while being yelled at, crawling like a spider across a football field at 6am, and other emberrassing yet completely amazing games. I was on the Yellow team, which won 2nd place (there were 3 teams and seriously the Red team cheated... :P). It was a ton of fun even though the only things I brought with me were toilet paper, a newspaper, and snack food because I didn´t know what was going on. My entire body is sore, and a I have a basketball game tonight against Chiquimula, wish us luck!

Dancing with the Mayor

So this last Thursday was the lighting of the town Chirstmas tree. It was a huge event with a Ranchero band called Los Tigres Del Oriente, and big shots from the national government were there, prizes were given out, and one of the best fireworks shows I've ever seen. Since they have no regulations, anything goes as far as explosions, lights, smoke, (Adam Parker would love it here) and when they shoot them off from the 1st story roof of the building your right next to you have a great (yet slightly dangerous) view. So at this festival I was hanging out with my Muni co-workers by the stage and Sandra (my boss in the Women's office) calls me over and then proceeds to push me out on stage to dance in front of all of Jocotan with the Mayor! So as if I'm not constantly being watched already, lets just stick here on stage and watch as I attempt to dance to music I've never heard in my life. They all got a big kick out of it, I'm pretty sure its a past time for them to emberrass me. I should have really surprised them and just started stripping while I was up there, haha. But seriously, all in all it was a good night and I left around 11:30 with Tia Neldy but aparently it lasted until 2:30 in the morning!

Peace.

Robin

Getting anxious, and Hilary Clinton

So today I was thinking, I hope I can hold out until Christmas before I just can´t handle living so unoccupied. I´m just not that kind of person and I can blame it on American culture or some self-ambition, but I am good at being the busy person and I just don´t know how long I can hold that off. In some ways I can´t wait to get going and many of my friends and family ask me, so what are you really doing in your work, your making name tags? what else, right? But I do think it´s important to take this slowly as well, as I need their confidence and trust so for now I am meeting people still, and going to meetings, and participating but not leading. But if anyone who reads this blog knows me, they know I am a leader, but it is important that in this job I train others to be leaders because only they can solve their problems, I can really only support the efforts that they make. Anything I do on my own will disolve when I leave so stepping back from leading to being more of a council is my position here.

With that being said, I had a visit from Roberto, my Coordinator from PC, and talked about my expectations here and work, ect. There are two projects that I would really like to start up. The first is with the women´s office to make small womens groups in these Aldeas with monthly meetings on different topics, such as Signing your name, AIDS prevention, Womens Rights, Domestic Violence, ect. Because the problem is they have such limited access to education and information, especially because they can´t read and write. So maybe we can at least open up discussions about the things that are affecting their lives and get them to talk about it.

The other project is a beautification of the central park here, and starting a community group for public art about social issues. I´ve talked about this one before, and next week I have a meeting with a childrens organization thats looking to form programs for the upcoming year, so that seems hopeful.

I also just need to say again how awesome it is to have Gabriel back in the office, and just in time for Roberto´s visit too! Also I heard Hilary Clinton is the new Secretary of State, hows the reception of this in America?

Peace. Love.

Robin

He's Back

So my counterpart came back to work today, thank god. He´s already helping me out and gives me someone to talk to at least. Maybe I can get a project off the ground by February...
For those who also asked what to send, send pictures and CDs or DVDs, honestly what kind of music doesn´t much matter, because I can´t get any of it here so as long as it´s in english your good. Burn some music from your collection or look down the music isle for one with a cool cover.
I have some new pictures of the town and my house (I´m borrowing the office camera), hopefully I´ll get a chance to put them up this weekend so keep on the lookout. Friday I´m going over to Kristy's house for indian food and this weekend is the Ferria of Camotan which aparently has motorcross at it, awesome.
Peace. Love.
Robin

December 1st

December 1st and it´s probably about 90 degrees out. Thanksgiving went well although I had some travel hold ups and got there after dinner, but cold turkey and nachos are definitely a good combo. The lake was beautiful, and hopefully someone will send me their pictures so I can pass them on since I no longer carry a camera. We went kayaking and to the markets and hiking, and the weather there is cooler so it actually felt like November. But getting back home I have a lot to do today as far as errands and all are, I need to go to the bank, pay my electric bill, buy my food for the week at the market, buy some more pure water, ect. Just trying to give an idea of the kind of day I have. For lunch I eat at this commodore which is a small restaurant with two options each day normally one beef and one chicken, but always good no matter what you order. It kind of reminds me of a Guatemalan Olga´s (a restaurant in CB).

Peace, Love,
Robin