My apologies for not posting in here in so long! It’s almost been two weeks of Steph and I living on our own, without the other two interns. It was really sad to see them go, even though we had only known them two weeks. They helped us so much the first two weeks, I seriously don’t know what we would have done if they weren’t here. Along with the interns we got to meet, there were two others that were here for 9 months (mas o menos). The four of them took this program so far and accomplished so much in the time that they spent here!
The day Julie and Ava left, we woke up at 5:45 to say our good-byes, and then later in the day we had our first office activity without any Spanish help. It actually went a lot better than I thought, and the girls seemed to enjoy it. We played a game that Ava actually made before she left, that was similar to BINGO. Instead of calling out numbers or letters, each square had a question and they had to find someone in the room that was the answer. After that we played musical chairs, of course to the sound of Justin Bieber. All the little girls love him, especially Veronica! It has gotten a lot easier to communicate with the girls, as my Spanish has improved. The girls speak fairly simply and slower than the adults here, so it is good practice. Another bonus is they don’t care if you mess up or don’t know what to say, they’ll even correct us.
After practice the next day, we packed our bags really quickly and headed to Antigua. I think we had to take 3 buses and 2 and a half hours to get there. The first bus we caught out of Solola was the most crowded bus I’ve ever been on. We were crammed in through the back door, and with a boot it’s not so easy. Once we got to Santa Maria (I think) we had to get off and catch another bus, which wasn’t as crowded. That took us to some other city that was crowded and fast paced, but we hopped off and found the next bus. This was the last bus ride, but seriously felt like I was on a roller coaster. Anyway, we made it and immediately walked to meet one of Luis’ friend to get something to eat. After that we went to find a hostel, which turned out to be the nastiest place I’ve ever stayed. After the bars closed we were hungry so we got some street food and sat and ate it. While we were sitting there I watched a police officer knock on a little window on a door and then grab a bag of white stuff. I’m pretty sure I watched a cop buy cocaine at 2 in the morning. Oh well, we still had a good night out in Antigua. The next day we toured around the city for a while. The architecture is very unique and beautiful. It was a very touristy place, so it was different to see a lot of white people. But we had to get back for practice Saturday morning.
We went to Pana Saturday night to watch Guatemala play Mexico in the Gold Cup. We watched the first half at Pupas’ house then went to the bars to watch the rest. They were actually up 1-0 at half, but couldn’t hold them off, similar to the U.S. in the finals. After the game we went to different bars, and met some boys our age from Guatemala City. They spoke almost perfect English, and didn’t look Guatemalan at all, but they were haha. We hung out with them most of the night, and and had a really good time minus the fact that Steph left her rain jacket at the restaurant we ate at. So, now she doesn’t have a rain jacket during rainy season.
Sunday we decided to finally take inventory of all the donated gear and clean up the office. We got Luis and his friend to help us write the sizes on the back of the newly donated cleats, while we counted and organized the old ones. The office looks a lot better now that it’s clean and doesn’t have random donated gear everywhere!
Last week was a busy week for us, because we had to get all of our last minute things together for the Copa Mundial Femenina (Women’s World Cup) that we are having. We went around to some of the schools with Julie and Ava to give the information to, and then the rest with Luis. When we went back to pick up the registration forms, not one of the schools had them ready. They all said come back Wednesday, so we did and if I remember correctly NONE of them had it ready! We spent like an hour and a half at Intergral, waiting for the gym teacher to come then find all the girls to write their names down! The Director at that school is extremely nice though, and was very excited about what we are doing. Thursday morning I was laying out on the roof, reading, and a coach came and had the registration sheet for her school. Another coach showed up at 5 with the forms, but couldn’t stay for the coaches meeting at 6, so we had to give him his country and uniforms. By the way, with this event we are doing, we are giving each school a set of uniforms that they get to keep even after the tournament is over. The other coaches ended up showing up to the meeting Thursday night, and we passed out all the uniforms and clarified some things.
The big opening ceremonies were set for Friday at 4, but that didn’t happen as planned. We were able to use a projector from the city I think, and then a guy was supposed to come to set up the sound and everything. The first thing that went wrong was that we didn’t have an extension chord for the projector, which wasn’t the worst thing. Then I realized the chord to plug the computer into the projector would not work with a mac. Luis tried to turn the projector on, and it wouldn’t even work, so all the time we spent on the power point and everything was wasted. Luckily Luis’ father came up with his computer and we at least got the sound to work, so we could play each countries national anthem as they walked around the gym. Only four teams showed up for the ceremony, which was pretty much expected. For the teams and girls that did come, we had a really good time. After the introductions and stuff, we did some relay races. And then at the end each team had 5 minutes to come up with a cheer for their country then do it in middle of the court. For the circumstances, I think it went well, although it’s kind of a bummer that a lot of the work we all put in for it was wasted.
After the Ceremony we took everything back to the office, packed out bags, and headed to San Pedro. We took a bus to Pana, then had to take about a 30 minute boat ride over to San Pedro. Once we got off the boat and dropped out stuff at the hostel we ate Pupusas at this little stand that a lady cooks at night. Pupusas is similar to a quesadilla(a lot different than a quesadilla in the states), a tortilla stuffed with cheese, beans, and pork. They were really delicious, but I had to finish off my meal with my first candy bar since I’ve been here. I saw a snickers at a tienda and couldn’t resist! After we ate we went to a bar with live music, and I met some students from NC State that were on a study abroad program. It was cool to talk to them and hear what they were doing and tell them what I am doing here. The next morning, Steph and I explored the town a bit before Luis woke up, then we all went to breakfast. It was a really cool place, with a really good view of the lake and volcano! After that we went kayaking, which was so fun and beautiful. It was kind of a bummer for Luis, because when he was trying to get out of the kayak he fell in and had his phone and camera in his pocket. So that was a pretty expensive kayaking experience for him. After we got changed and everything we headed back to Solola, because we had plans to watch the U.S. game with a family here. We went over around 7 and watched the game in one of the bedrooms that had a tv with cable. They were all actually cheering for the U.S. because a lot of people here hate Mexico. While we were watching, one of the girls was cooking steak on a grill type thing. Steak here is a thin piece of very tough beef, and you basically just use your hands and teeth to rip it apart to eat. Along with the carne we had a salad with cucumbers, avocado, tomatoes, and who knows what else, but everything was very good.
This morning was our first day of Copa Mundial games, which started at 9. The first game didn’t end up starting until 9:30, which was pretty much on time for Guatemalans. It’s so different coming from America where you are almost expected to be early everywhere, to here where NOTHING starts on time. Everyone is very relaxed and kind of on their own time here. All the teams showed up, and we fit all 4 games in the time slot we had for the gym. Thank you to Lindsay Basalyga and EKU, one of the teams was wearing the uniforms that I wore at Eastern my sophomore year, so they definitely looked good. Well the Futbol Sin Fronteras team looked pretty good too with their FSF jerseys. Overall, it was a very successful day and all of the work we put into making it happen was worth it after seeing the smiles on the girls faces while playing. There are still three more weeks of the tournament, and I am so excited to see what will happen!
I’ve made a note to myself, not to wait this long to post because that took way too long to write and I’m sure I missed a million things! But I will work on posting pictures (for you Grandma, since you can’t figure out facebook)!
Much love to all!