homestay and school

Sunday morning we moved into our homestays. My mom is 60 yrs. old and sews during the day while my dad just turned 63 years old on Monday and is a taxi driver. They have 3 daughters who are all married. Two live far away and the other lives with us along with her husband and 8 year old son. However the daughter lives somewhere else during the week, closer to her work. They are definitely a middle class family. It's a nice sized house with at least five bedrooms, a kitchen and dining room. I've only been shown my room, the kitchen and dining room though.

My bed/desk

My shelves

my view/the middle of the house

Monday was the first day of our 5 hour Spanish class! It flew by so fast. It'll be great to focus on little grammatical things and pronunciation. My teacher is nice and patient with me. 

PLQ (on the left)-- my school

Our days have been 5 hours Spanish class, lunch at home, back at school for some facebook/homework time, some speaker or presentation, and then more homework, dinner, more homework, and bed. Luckily today I just have to read a chapter from our book. But today I had my first presentation and paper due. 1 down, 3 to go! 
Sorry this is so all over the place I want to give a quick update but there is so much to share I don't really know where to start. 
Our speakers and the documentary we watched this week have informed us about the war in Guatemala that lasted 36 years, from 1960-1996. We learned about the US involvement in Guate and how our policies and businesses have hurt the country. Here is some info we learned: 
- Revolution of October 1944-1954: first democratic period, the presidents stood up for the poor, land reforms
-United Fruit Company was upset that they had to sell their unused land to the gov't
-Counter Revolution 1954-1960, saw Communism as a threat, land taken from peasants, those involved in Revolution tortured and murdered
-Guerrilla groups formed: FAR, EGP, ORPA, PGT; join forces in the '80s
-1982 coup backed by US gov't, Efraín Ríos Montt becomes President- commits over 626 massacres, 440 villages burned to the ground, 45,000 disappeared people, involves Indigenous population through Civilian Patrols
-1996 Peace accords signed
-1998 Recovery of Historical Memory by Catholic church uncovers that the gov't committed 92% of human rights violations during the war, guerrillas responsible for 3%
- 12 families own/run the country
-Current president is Otto Perez Molina, an ex general that is responsible for many massacres during the war, campaign was funded by a Mexican drug cartel 

Through the week we watched a documentary called "Voice of a Mountain", and our speakers included a Colonel from the Guatemalan Army and an ex-guerrilla fighter.  
 It's been a lot to take in and process but very interesting. 

Tonight we're going to play soccer again with the school. Lots of fun! 
My family is super sweet, they're kind of quite but it's been good. The food's not the best but that's partly just because I'm a picky eater. 
Saturday and Sunday we'll be in a rural community staying in a hotel together. It'll be nice to be with the whole group again and hang out after a crazy busy first week of classes. 
Overall it has been a wonderful experience, wonderful leaders, wonderful group. 
Sorry for this extremely scattered post.
Hasta pronto amigos! Mucho amor de Guate!  

 

volcano

I survived the grueling hike Saturday up Santa Maria volcano. The night before when they were telling us about the hike the man kept saying that we might not make it and that it was challenging. One other girl and I were definitely up to the challenge and soon majority of the group was on board. It definitely was a challenge but almost all of us made it!
We left our hotel at 5:45am and were on the trail shortly after 6am. After an hour of hiking we arrived to the base of the volcano, already tired and out of breath. The next 3 hours was a steep hike with numerous breaks along the way. But when we finally reached the top, it was beautiful. We were above the clouds. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the volcano next to Santa Maria as it erupted but we could hear it. Super cool. After hanging out at the top, taking pictures and eating some PB and J we slipped and slided our way down with some laughter. The late afternoon was for sleeping until we went out for dinner as a group as it was our last night together before homestays. We hit the hay early to recover from the climb and prep for the families.

Fellow Oles!!!

Santa Maria

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a quick update

I thought I'd give you all an update about the past few days. I hate to just give a brief here's what we did without too much thought/reflection but I'm just gonna deal.
I'm on this journey with 13 other students from colleges all over the US and I must say that we're phenom aka the best group eva. We've had a lot of fun getting to know each other as we start off this semester abroad together. We have two fearless leaders, Joe and Ruth, who are wonderful and so knowledgeable.
After spending Tuesday night in Antigua, Wednesday morning we headed to Quetzaltenango (Xela) which is our home base for the next 3 weeks! Our van had a good 4 hour car ride where we discussed various topics such as hair, religion, and music and munched on yummy cookies. Once in Xela we went to lunch at Cafe Red which has been our meeting spot for the past few days as we have had various orientation activities. Cafe Red is where they work with migrants//people that have been deported from the US and Mexico and have various offices in the US too. The staff there is hilarious. I'll write more another time about Cafe Red and all the amazing things they do because what I just wrote was so lame/doesn't do it justice. But then we moved into our hotel where we are until Sunday morning when we move in with our families. That afternoon we went into the huge open market in the rain to help us gain a sense of what life is like for people here. We were divided into groups (FOOD!!) and given Q50 (Quetzales... $1 USD= Q7.8). Q50 is the minimum daily wage for a family in Guate and we had to buy food for a day for a family of five with Q50 or about $6.34 USD. It is truly amazing how much food we could buy with all that money. Rice, beans, tortillas, onions, tomatoes, peppers, oranges, eggs, bananas, potatoes, and salt. But when we regrouped we discussed the fact that we just spent a days wage on a days worth of food and how there are so many other expenses such as housing, electricity, gas, water, clothes, health, school, and more that still need to be covered. I must stop and applaud CGE (Center for Global Education) because when I say that I've been doing orientation stuff all week I do not mean ice breaker games. I mean thought provoking and informational activities like this.
On Thursday we spent majority of the day talking about our personal educational journeys- experiences, people and books that have shaped who we are today. It was important to hear about where we all come from and to recognize that we all have different experiences and come from different places and perspectives. We also talked about our multi-cultural selves and how important it is to not use stereotypes. For example some words I used for myself were US citizen, daughter, Ole, Christian, privileged, and white. Then we had to make "I am a _____ but I am not a _______" statements. One person gave the example of I am a Christian but I am not a bigot. As part of the program we will be discussing lots of sensitive subjects in our group and it is important not to assume things about other people.
Today we talked about CGE's educational pedagogy of 1. experience, 2. reflect/analyze, 3. ACT (which should lead to more experiences and the cycle continues), and 4. celebrate. (Sound familiar FOC El Salvador people??) This is the basic theory for liberation theology! We also got to go to our language school (PLQ- Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco) for a presentation on the health care system in Guate and later in the afternoon we went back to learn more about our program (so exciting--I'll write more later). We got to explore on our own for lunch and dinner. Lunch was a little rough but dinner was MUY RICO! We're about to go to the central park to see some break dancers? but it'll be an early night as we are going to leave at 5:30am to climb a volcano (I don't remember the name. Stay tuned because the name of the volcano will be released tomorrow... as long as I survive...)

some history y'all

Sorry for not updating this week. We've been busy exploring, learning, orientating, traveling and more! So I'll start with Tuesday...
We started the day with a quick overview of the program and then learned about the history of Guate. It was so interesting to hear the history and think about all the differences and similarities between El Salvador and Guatemala. Just a few similarities: a certain number of families owning all the land, civil wars, corruption of government, US supporting their governments, still struggling post wars, and people now a days not knowing the history. Later that night another man spoke to our group, when we arrived in Antigua, about how Guatemalans don't know about what happened in the war (1960-1996) and that because of this their current president is a former army general who led the massacres during the war. Such a large portion of the population is illiterate and/or ignorant and so the government manipulates them and they live in fear of speaking up/out. Although in the US there is not a high illiteracy rate there is a high level of ignorance towards politics. Before I left for my trip the primary elections were held and the night before on the news they kept talking about how few people vote in the elections and especially the primary elections. Then they interview a woman about the topic who said something along the lines of, "Well honestly I'm not too concerned with anything that has to do with politics. It's summer out and I just want to enjoy the beautiful weather. I couldn't care less about politics. It's irrelevant to me." What? Really? Irrelevant? Except the fact that it completely affects so many aspects of your life. People assume that the government will do what's best. But people don't realize that they can have a voice and can bring about change. They don't realized what our government has done (in Guate, El Salvador, and more) and is doing (in Colombia, Iraq, Syria, etc).
Our morning speaker also talked about how the world will end in a few months so we need live it up people! just kidding. He talked about how 2012 is an interesting year as the Mayans believe that is in the dawn of a new era, not the end of the world. They see it as an exciting opportunity for change, for peace, for rights, for respect. An end of an era of intolerance, war, hate.
After our morning history talk we left the Mennonite guesthouse and headed to downtown Guatemala City to walk around the central square where we saw the National Palace, National Cathedral, National library, and pigeons galore. As we were downtown I noticed that the streets were cleaner than El Salvador and they were not lined with vendors selling in the streets. However as after exploring the town square we hopped back in the van and the streets started being filled with trash. Mattresses ripped apart, bottles thrown about, cardboard all over. We were approaching the city dump that used to lie on the outskirts of the city but now lies towards the middle as the city has grown. There is a lot to say and share about this day and experience but I'm not sure what/how yet. We visited a school right next to the dump that has about 100 students. Students that were thrown out of their schools because of poor behavior or grades. They live in conditions that no human should have to live. They come from neighborhoods where there is no room to play because the little space between houses is filled with trash and people doing drugs. The school has been open for 8 years and now is starting to see success as some students are just graduating from college.
From there we went to Antigua to explore and where we met with our second speaker who spoke more about the history of Guate and the political situation.
It was a long day full of learning about Guate- its history, politics, economy, people, culture, and more.

estoy aquí

warning: i've been up since 3am and am tired but i thought i'd tell you a bit about my day. i hope it makes sense. 
it's been a long day that started around 3:10am! excited and anxious to get the show on the road, i got out of bed without much resistance. my wonderful friend drove me to the airport and i was ready to check in. excited and smiling (at 4am?!? how?) i walked up to the ticket counter only to find out that we had to first check in at the kiosk and then be helped at the counter. so i waited in line at the kiosk only for it to tell me that i needed to speak with an agent. the lady at the counter typed in my name and then her face was puzzled as she was hitting the keys. she called over her supervisor and they whispered to each other for quite some time. apparently the issue is that i don't have a return ticket yet i'm not supposed to be able to go so they had to put in some extra info or something...i don't know what they did/how they fixed the situation but they did. yay! the first flight was pretty uneventful as i lounged in a row to myself en route to ft. lauderdale. i read some of 'understanding central america' which is a recommended reading for the trip. it gives a general overview of the history of central america- guatemala, el salvador, honduras, nicaragua, and costa rica- and the political, economic, and general overview of the situation in each country. on the second flight i sat next to a guatemalan woman- Letica who talked a little to me but not clearly whatsoever so i only got some of it. and i helped her fill out her customs forms because her glasses don't do her any good. as the second plane took off she exclaimed "oh dios!!" and crossed herself and then proceeded to sing to herself. and then she started praising god and jesus as the plane landed. :) she was cute. te alabamos señor, te alabamos jesucristo, gracias dios! good reminder to praise god!
we are staying at casa emaus which is the guesthouse at semilla seminary, a mennonite seminary. it's pretty nice and very clean.
tomorrow we are touring guatemala city including a school in a city dump and then late afternoon heading to antigua for the night. wednesday we are heading to quetzaltenango where we will be until mid-september. next monday we start classes.
it's exciting to finally be here and so surreal too. but with that excitement i've felt nervous, overwhelmed, and thinking what am i doing? but i am trusting in God that things will be okay, great, wonderful, lots of fun but of course with challenges and obstacles too.
i hope to have more exciting things to post soon! 
mucho amor de guatemala!!! woohooooo :)

let's do this!

Tomorrow is the big day! I'm super excited for the new adventures that lie ahead! Let's do this already!

Last night I was able to stuff my 70 L backpacking backpack with all my clothes for the semester. How? I really don't know but I can already think of more things I wish I had room for. Oh well. Now both my backpacks are stuffed to the brims and ready for Guatemala.
I'm currently at my friend's house in Chicago, hanging out after a long day on the megabus and a delicious chicken dinner. My flight leaves tomorrow morning at 5:30am. Uff dah! Then I'll be in Guate by 11:40am aka T-16ish hours after a quick layover in Ft. Lauderdale.

As I was on the bus today I was making a list in my head of things I will miss:
1. My family-- Thanksgiving (what will they do without my pies?!?)
2. My friends-- they're the best! and I'm so glad I could see so many of them this past week!
3. St. Olaf-- the people, the professors, the beautiful fall colors, homecoming, the cookie house, Christmas fest and all the wonderful Norwegian sweaters, and just St. Olaf in general
4. Fall-- all the beautiful colors, the cool weather, sweatshirts
5. Thanksgiving- my pies, my family--my brother coming home to visit!?!, food food and more food
6. Drinking water out of the faucet
7. Throwing my toliet paper in the toliet (lulzz tmi?)
8. Being able to access internet whenever
9. my blanket 
10. and more

BUT then I began to think of all the things I am looking forward to::
1. Spanish class- for real! we'll have one-on-one Spanish class for 5 hours/day in Guatemala
2. being in El Salvador- a familiar place and hopefully some familiar faces too
3. homestays! (7 in all)
4. cool weather in Guatemala (70s)
5. all the cool new places I will go and all the amazing new people I will meet
6. the Liberation Theology class in El Salvador with Sister Peggy
7. exploring
8. blogging for all you to enjoy too! ;)
9. new friends
10. SO MUCH MORE!

Anyways that's all folks...until I'm in Guatemala!! WOOT WOOT! :)

here we go. the trip.

so i finally gave into making a blog. something i'm not thrilled about to be honest but it'll be a good place to share thoughts, stories, pictures, and many adventures that will take place during my semester abroad in central america. why am i not thrilled about writing a blog? i worry that i won't have time to write enough and that what i write will just end up being a quick here's what i did this week without much thought or reflection. but i will try to write every now and then to let you all know about life in central america.
the trip. there are 13 students in all, 2 others from olaf, the rest from all over the usa. the program is through augsburg. i leave august 19th for chicago and then fly to guatemala on august 20th.
we start in guatemala for 5 weeks, taking one-on-one spanish classes for 5 hours a day while doing a homestay. honestly i am so excited for this because it (hopefully) means improvement for my spanish.
next we head to el salvador for 4 weeks were we take a liberation theology class at the uca from sister peggy. i'm super excited for this because i love el salvador. it'll be quite the opportunity to learn at the uca and from sister peggy, who i was able to meet in july while in el salvador! we will be living in a house in san salvador by the metro centro which is 5 minutes from where i stay when previously in el salvador. it'll be nice to be in a familiar location yet hard to be so close to so many friends yet not be able to see them very much.
then we have a week off for fall break. plans are to be determined.
then we head to nicaragua for 6 weeks where we take a history class and a political science class. during this time we'll be in a homestay, possibly with another student.
the program ends december 8th and i might hang around for a while, maybe head back to el salvador for a little bit.
so there you have a general overview of what is to come.
am i excited? YES.
am i nervous? YES.
am i ready? hahaaaa not quite yet.