We´re not in Kansas anymore

When you got up first thing this morning and went into the bathroom with sleep still in your eyes, what did you find? Perhaps an ant, maybe a cockroach if you live in the South, maybe one of those skinny little spiders in the corner. You probably didn’t find anything of note and so you continued your day without any thought of what an adventure it might be to go to the bathroom. Let me tell you what I found last week when I went down to the latrine; perhaps your experience was somewhat like mine.

It was early morning on Saturday and with that sleep still in my eye, I walked through the dewy grass to the latrine. I was going to sweep out the latrine and behind the broom was this Hairy-Hoo-Hoo just hanging out. I told Edd but by the time he got down there, it was gone. Naïve us thought that meant the enormous tarantula had rationally decided to move to other haunts. Not so. Two days later, I again found Hairy in the latrine first thing in the morning and this time booked it up to the house to tell Edd. Though he didn’t say it, I knew he thought I was overreacting. In fact, he reminded me that people keep tarantulas as pets. So he grabbed the giant size can of bug spray (the brand is Baygon which in Spanish is pronounced “bygone” as in, “Let big hairy tarantulas the size of my fist be bygones”) and headed down. Hairy was waiting and, Edd says, was running towards him at the door when he opened it. Hairy proceeded to play some hide-and-seek, scuttling around the corner of the latrine and peeking out every time Edd made a move. Finally, he sprayed Hairy and down he went. We thought that was the end of it. Edd came up to tell me that it was the largest tarantula he’s ever seen. This time, I decided to join him (after all, Hairy was dead now) and we headed back down to the latrine to sweep out his furry corpse. But when we opened the door, Hairy was waiting around the corner - he was still alive! Edd grabbed a log and clubbed him twice, finally putting Hairy to rest. Edd swept him out of the latrine, leaving his body on the side of the stairs. Later that day, I went to the bathroom and looked for Hairy’s body but it was not there nor in the immediate vicinity. I mentioned this to Edd, who had also noticed Hairy’s absence and provided the explanation that cutter ants had probably already carried off his body. I’m skeptical.

About 30 minutes after the early morning tarantula slaying, I reached up on the shelf to grab the water filter. I checked inside the filter by sticking my finger inside to see if it was dry and a scorpion about 3 inches long flew out and landed on the wall. Fortunately, Baygon actually does a quick job of killing scorpions and in a matter of seconds, this teenager was dead. Once you kill a scorpion, you still have to be careful because their stingers are potent for a few hours after they’re dead. Alternately, you could cut off the stinger and let the scorpion limp away in shame. Recently while we were having lunch at a neighbor’s house, we learned that if you are stung by a scorpion, you eat sugar. Good to know.

In addition to my recent encounters with these creepies, I’ve also had some neat interactions with or observations of animals that are apart from my experience with animals in the US. I watched a chicken with a frog in its mouth be chased by another chicken, a baby cow walked up close to check me out (a little freaky), we found rows of cutter ants carrying pieces of leaves twice their size, we watched two hummingbirds take turns drinking from a waterfall, in our yard giant toads come out when it rains, and there are lots of pretty butterflies everywhere. Living in the Guatemalan jungle is not all scary, crawly things and it has been fun to experience life so close to nature.

However, we still have a few questions and I’m hoping some of our friends and family can help us out. We’ve really had trouble getting on the internet lately for long periods of time and haven’t had a chance to look up information about some of these new “friends”. Here are some of our questions:
-Do tarantulas lay eggs? If so, is it likely that Hairy is actually a she-Hairy and babies will soon abound in the latrine?
-Are tarantulas in Guatemala poisonous or do they bite? How high can they jump?
-Would cutter ants want to carry away and eat a tarantula?
-Are the black scorpions in Guatemala poisonous?
-If a tarantula and a scorpion got in a fight, who would win?

Spanish vocabulary:
Tarantula – tarantula
Scorpion – alecran
Butterfly – mariposa
Frog – sapo
Oh my God! – Dios mio!
Get the spray! – Traiga el espray!
I thought you said you killed it! - Pensé que me dijiste que lo mataste!

Bonus! Creepy that we found while exploring caves last week!

Life, in general

Santa Maria Tzeja is a small rural community in northern Guatemala about 30km from the Mexican border. A little more then 1,000 people live here in the village. Last month SMT celebrated its 39th anniversary of foundation. In the late 70s and early 80s, SMT was caught in the middle of the Guatemalan Civil War. This sad history of SMT is well documented in the book “Paradise in Ashes” by Beatriz Manz, an anthropologist working in the community during the years of the war. If you would like to learn more about that time period in SMT’s history, I strongly recommend it.

Santa Maria Tzeja currently has no running water or electricity, however there are plans to bring both to the village (“It’s easy to say, harder to do” is the most common phrase whenever this subject is brought up.) We’ll see what things look like by the time we leave in November. Most families have “pilas” or cement pools that collect the rain water off their houses for washing and bathing. In the dry season (read: so ridiculously hot I want to cry season), water must be carried from the “pozos” or wells dug out of the side of the hills that are spread around the village. At first not having running water at my instant disposal was my greatest annoyance but I have come to appreciate the time visiting with people as I fill my water jug at the pozo and the appreciation I have for the water I use.

I joined the community soccer team thinking it would be a one game friendly inter-community get to know you. I was unprepared for the 14 week regular season, punches being thrown at the ref, drunks throwing rocks at me as I tend goal, and kicks to the face that it has actually turned out to be. My sitting the bench on my high school team did not prepare me for this.

By now you must be asking yourself, "So what’s there to do on a Saturday night for a hip twenty something couple 45min from the nearest town of any size?" I want to know the same thing. Once a month or so there tends to be a dance of somekind; usually Marimba music. Otherwise people tend to hang out around the 6 general stores at the town center. Typically one of the stores will run a small generator and play a Spanish dubbed kung-fu movie which have begun to grow on me. Other then catching up on the latest soccer scores and town gossip, weekends tend to be a bit slow. (I thought growing up in rural Ohio was boring).

That said, life here tends to feel a lot like a paradise vacation for me most days. The stars are indescribable and I have read more in the last six monthes than the six years prior. People have been extreamly friendly and forgiving of my social blunders. As my Spanish improves, so does my ability to connect with the other teachers, soccer players, my students and the community in general. Living in Santa Maria Tzeja and teaching English these last six months have been the most significant experience of my life.

Numerology

After a brief break from the internet, we are now back in action having safely arrived in Santa Maria Tzeja, Guatemala on Friday. Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of activity wrapping up life in Atlanta, preparing to move, and visiting friends and family. It would be challenging to describe all that has happened these last few weeks without a very lengthy blog post so instead, we will try to encapsulate everything using numbers.

Miles added to the car – 1765
States visited – 9
Number of hugs from friends and family – 311
Amount of PBR consumed at the Marpepp wedding – ~24 cases+
Average hours slept per night over the last three weeks – 4.5
New Facebook friends added – 35
Miles left until Atlanta when the alternator died – 31
Random strangers who helped with some aspect of the journey – 7
Food grilled at Adios Atlanta cookout – 0
Vaccinations injected – 10
Times bumped up to first class – 2
Hours of travel to get to Santa Maria Tzeja from Atlanta – 25
Average number of passengers that can ride inside and/or on top of Guatemalan microbuses – 29
Total weight of two checked bags – 97 lbs
Conversion of dollars to Quetzales – $1 = 8Q

English classes resumed on Saturday in the neighboring village, Santa Maria Dolores and the classes in Tzeja resumed on Monday. Sunday, Edd continued as the goalie with the Tzeja soccer team in the local semi-finals, losing 3-0 (ouch). Several community groups have expressed an interest in working with me to start projects, so I will start discussing opportunities with different groups today.

It is sometimes hard to believe that most of my life fit into 5 bags and that I now live in a wooden cabin with no light or running water but it also is wonderfully simple and very beautiful. The journey to get here has been long but also fun, and only made possible with the support and love from family and friends. Above is a picture of the front of the house/dorm and you can find more pictures of our trip to Coban and places in SMT here. Enjoy!

Virtual High Five

We did it! Thanks to the generosity of friends and family, you have helped me to achieve my fundraising goal to cover the living costs for 6 months in Guatemala! Thank you to each of the donors who made this possible!

Any funds raised above $2,000 will go towards the community. As the projects and needs have not been further delineated, we will continue to write about our progress over the next six months and how your financial contributions are helping.

I have been simultaneously humbled and uplifted by the generosity of each of you throughout this transition, not only by your financial gifts but also by your words of encouragement and prayers.

In honor of this milestone, please accept this virtual high five (with directions, in case you are confused). Also check out this video , created by friends of a friend, which further shows how appropriate high fives are for celebrating big achievements. High five!

For the visual learners

What I would really like to do is have a slideshow scrolling some of the pictures Edd has sent from Guatemala. It appears that I should be able to do this when I look at how to set up the page but as a beginning blogger, I don't quite get it yet. Each time I try to set it up, it doesn't pull in my own photos from flickr. So until I can figure it out, I'll include a teaser picture here of a child dressed up for the baile de venado (dance of the deer). He is from a community about 2 hours from Santa Maria Tzeja who came for the 39th Anniversary Festival. Here's the link to the other photos that I have uploaded so far - enjoy!

Snapshots of Santa Maria Tzeja

Painting my thumb green

Edd comes back to the US in three weeks for his friends' wedding. Do you know what he is most excited to eat when he's back? An enormous salad. Leafy greens are not a part of the staple diet in SMT. So as we've been talking about what to bring back with us, we discussed the possibility of bringing back seeds (if that is permissible with Guatemalan customs) to plant a garden and have some of those greens that he's been missing so much.

Interestingly, Edd and Juana (the mother of the family Edd eats with), were talking about trans-genetic seeds and food last week. Juana was getting fired up about the implications that has on the people who eat the foods and her response was "Well, when Audrey gets here we´ll expand our little garden and she can help us grow our own food." How perfect that I've been thinking about having a garden and Juana has been thinking about me helping with the garden!

Except here's the thing: I don't really have any gardening skills. My dad - yes. Master gardener. For anyone who has ever been to my parents' house, you know that they make raspberry and cherry jam, grow apples and peaches, and have enough braided garlic hanging in the garage to keep Edward Cullen's entire family away. I think it's because I shared with Juana and Teresa that my dad grows garlic and makes a fantastic garlic soup that they believe I may also be endowed with that gardening gift. I am not sure it is hereditary.

The pictures above are examples of my attempts to grow plants/keep them alive over the last year. From the left - an African violet my mom got me in August. I'm pretty sure it's dead but I water it now and then just in case it's still alive. Second, a fern - who doesn't want to have a lush, green fern cascading on their porch? I tried. Really. But I think there must be something special about the fern that draws my cat Fiona to eat it and the poor fern has never recovered. I also still water it, just in case it's alive. Third, Kate and Ryan gave me this beautiful ginger (?) last year. It IS still alive - see how the green leaves keep growing? But the pretty red flower has shriveled. I keep thinking that a new flower will emerge but it hasn't happened yet. The redemption? Philodendron. The best plant ever. You pretty much cannot kill it. Even if you forget to water it for a long time, add some water and it comes back! It's super resilient AND you can clip its leaves and put them in water and they grow roots that you can eventually plant. This plant is the one that makes me believe there may be some hope for our SMT garden yet.

If you have any gardening tips or tricks, send them along!

For more information about the benefits of garlic: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/unlocking-the-benefits-of-garlic/

JA Fellows - Third year's a charm

Thursday night was the JA Fellows Awards Ceremony, the culminating event of the 2008-2009 program year. I have had the honor of working with this program over the past three years and helping it to grow from 115 students in 2007 to 220 students in 2009. The video above includes some highlights from the JA Fellows Expo that took place on April 18. The Expo is the day that all companies compete and display their accomplishments throughout the year and it was an awesome event.

At the Awards Ceremony on Thursday, we honored all of the students in the program who represent 15 JA Fellows Companies and awarded prizes to the individuals and companies who won awards from the JA Fellows Expo. Together, these students earned over $30,000 in sales over the course of 16 weeks, from October 2008 to March 2009. As if it is not enough for high school students to have started 15 companies and sold $30,000 worth of products in such a short time period, it is also important to note that these students accomplished all of this during the worst economic climate of our lifetimes. It is an exceptional feat!

Beyond the particulars of these students' collective successes, it has been a real joy to watch individual students grow and learn throughout their involvement as JA Fellows. Students deal with many obstacles from communication to motivation to personal challenges, and still they persevere to achieve great things. I have been priviledged to develop personal, and hopefully lasting, relationships with students and their families throughout my three years with the JA Fellows. Working with these students has brought me great joy and personal fulfillment and I am grateful to all of them and to Junior Achievement for providing me the opportunity to develop this important program. The successes of the JA Fellows could not have been possible without the efforts of many people: JA Staff - Sunil, Joy, Laura, Jack and many others, JA volunteers, JA Board Members, and the financial/volunteer support of many individuals, organizations, and corporations.

My work at JA has helped me to see that I have a passion for empowering others through education and economic development and I will be applying that passion in new ways while in Guatemala. I will also be using some of the products that our JA Fellows created this year! When I visited Edd in March, I took a Project My World bag, thinking that he could use its convenient size and toting ability. It was a huge hit and people have asked that I bring more back when I return. I also have my JUMP bracelet and my Twelve Fingers water bottle to take with me. Information about the 2008-2009 JA Fellows companies is here http://www.jafellows.com/companies.

Until June, you can also vote in the first ever JA Fellows Video Challenge! This contest highlights three videos that our JA Fellows created this year about their experiences: http://www.jafellows.com/video-challenge/.

I am exploring the possibility of having students from the school in SMT participate in the JA Company Program themselves once I am there. If it will work, you'll be sure to hear about it here!

Thank you to all the students, families, friends and supporters of the JA Fellows who have enriched my life over these last three years. I am extremely grateful.