Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in suebag's LiveJournal:

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Friday, August 18th, 2006
5:12 pm	pensamientos Voy a escribir en español hoy para que nadie me entienda, no es que no quiera que lean lo que escribo, pero todo el mundo puede ver este diario a veces necesito que nadie sepan. Bueno pues, como me va la vida? Digo que este verano es el primero en que no siento tan estresada, tan preocupada con me imagen y mi situación. Es decir que me siento a gusto, no hay nada que me falte, tengo una familia bien cariñosa, amigas que me cuidan y me quieren, y he tenido tantas oportunidades a viajar y ver el mundo que no me puedo quejar, gracias a Dios. Pero el chiste es que el verano pasado mi situación no fue tan diferente, a pesar de que tenia mas dinero y tuve mi mala experiencia con la ley en Hocking County. Tenia los mismos amigos, el mismo trabajo, pero sentía sola y triste. Lo que pasa es que siempre tuve un imagen en mi mente de “la vida perfecta” y como serian las cosas si fuera mas popular, menos tímida, mas “normal.” No se si sea porque fui a México y me llene con confianza, pero me caí en la cuenta que estoy bien como soy, que me gusta como soy y en vez de quejarme y desear ser otra persona (cual es imposible, de todos modos) hay que aceptarme y ver lo bueno que tengo. No sabes cuanto me había molestado, ese sentido de no ser normal, porque aunque era feliz siempre hubo un pensamiento que me picaba como si fuera una mosca. No agradecía lo que tenia, el amistad y el amor que me rodeaban. Pero ahora es fácil ver que suerte tengo, como Dios me bendice. Me encanta mi familia y mis amigos y la vida en general. Aunque haya muchos problemas en el mundo, la pobreza, el hambre, la gente sin hogar, polución, etc, también hay belleza y felicidad. Hace un año estaba yo deprimida porque apenas aprendía sobre los problemas de los derechos humanos en el mundo, lo que esta pasando con corporaciones como Coca Cola y Wal-Mart y todo el mal que existe y me sentí agobiada porque soy sola una persona y a veces parece que la mayoría de la gente no le importa su prójimo. PERO ya me fije que aunque hay Wal-Mart y Coca Cola también hay organizaciones como Growing Home de Chicago que acabo de descubrir. Ellos hace exactamente lo que quiero hacer yo algún día, tienen programas agriculturas en su granja orgánica para los pobres y gente que vive en el sur de la ciudad. Los ayudan con la busca de trabajo, con entretenimiento y los emplean para que tenga experiencia y para que aprendan sobre la agricultura urbana. Es un programa buenísimo y en cuanto llegue a Chicago voy a investigar a ver si puedo ofrecer mi apoyo. Y pues, y ves que hay gente que quieren ayudar, que quieren mejorar la situación para los que no tienen las oportunidades hacer una buena vida. Claro que no soy la única que ve los problemas mundiales y si nos juntamos, podemos cambiar el mundo, no lo dudo. Y pues, creo que si hago trabajo así, trabajo de la comunidad, trabajo del pueblo, viviré contenta y feliz y no me faltará nada importante. Aunque no tengo una visión clara de mi futuro, tengo ganas de vivirlo y para ahora, estoy contenta estar aquí, dondequiera sea. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
1:26 am	sometimes at night sometimes at night i get emo and i start thinking about life and too many deep thoughts and i have lots of questions i can't answer. maybe thats the key to the emo phenomenon, that back in the day people were too tired to stay up all night and think about all the decisions they had made in the past and such things because they worked all day on the farm or what have you. but now we live much more sedentary life styles and so we have the chance to question our every moves... that in itself is tiring, but not in the good, sore muscles way, but they annoying, headache sort of way. anyway... maybe this is what they call culture shock. it's less of a shock for me and more of a dull pain, but it's not very fun. i don't know what i expected to feel, but i miss the music and the color of mexico. i miss the carefree feeling and the nights en el centro listening to salsa music and eating marquesitas (ice cream cones with cheese and nutella, mas o menos) and laughing at everything with my friends. i just feel so bogged down with responsibility here, i've been back for like three days and i have a to do list thats a page and a half long. why do we do this to ourselves? why is so hard and complicated just to live your life? i acknowledge how important it is to work hard, but it's not the end all goal. if you don't have time to enjoy yourself and enjoy the company of your friends and family then what is the point? i get so frusterated with the attitude that efficiency is everything, because as i have learned in the past 6 months, it's not. and it's subtle things like that, it has nothing to do with the food or the music or what the people look like, it's attitudes that make it so hard to come back. i'm still trying to figure out how to blend the old me and the new me together into something functional. Wish me luck. i just realized I don’t have really anything exciting to write about anymore. I was riding my bike to my dad’s office and it felt just like last summer. I hate de ja vou. I also have no idea how to spell that, maybe I should take French I’m going to go to sleep now, I need sleep, badly. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 23rd, 2006
2:14 am	el final Well, I did it. Six months later I’m back in the states, tanner, a little fatter, with another language under my belt, a suitcase full of pictures, artesanias, Mexican music, and ganas to do it again. Even looking at my pictures now and seeing myself in all these different places I have a hard time believing that I did all those things. Time just flew by, half a year is a long time and it’s already over. I wanted to study abroad my whole life and now it’s over, I’ve done it, I’ve survived. How weird is that?? Saying goodbye to my family in merida was so hard. We watched the futbol game together on Sunday on the big screen in Gloria and jose luis’s room. I put on my green shirt and painted a Mexican flag on my cheek and cheered as loud as everyone else when we got a “goooooooooooooooooooooooool!” (they get really excited about the gols). Then I had to go run some errands and head over to carolina’s to say goobye to her and her family so I had to hug pato and cachito for the last time, my little practically nephews who I absolutely adored. Pato was my tiny Mexican novio, and cachito and I played games like I was 4 years old too. Although somehow it always ended with him pinching me in the arm, but I don’t think he really intended to hurt me. I started crying immediately when I told Paty that I was leaving for the afternoon, and it only got worse when I hugged Pato and Cachito for the last time. Paty’s husband was equis, he always made me sort of uncomfortable anyway. So I put on my sunglasses and threatened Adriana and Issac not to leave bcause I didn’t want to have to say goobye to anyone else right then, I think I would have had some sort of breakdown if I had. That afternoon I hung out at Carolina’s for a while with her family, looking at pictures, watching the replays of the game, talking about when they would comce to Chicago and visit me. I hope they can but like Silvia said, they don’t have a lot of money and it’s super expensive to visit the united states. Of course Carolina and Cristina would stay with me, but just getting there and food costs would be hard to cover. Maybe their chile business will take off and they’ll suddenly be comfortably wealthy. I hope so because I want to see them again soon. Even though it was like 3 in the afternoon they made me drink some toronja and tequila because it was my last day there, and Silvia told me that she prays our countries will never fight so that we can always have the right to see each other. It seems like my country is already trying to make that really hard to do, but we’ll see… After we laughed for like two hours straight at various pictures of caro, cris, yael, and I, I had to say goodbye to the fam and it was hard but I think I still hadnt’ realized that I was leaving at the time, plus silvia said she would come with the girls to the airport to say goobye, so really only carlos, yael, y don beto were the ones I wasn’t going to see. We spent the rest of the afternoon slash night in el centro with cris, caro, Daniel, and yuri. I’m going to miss el centro so much, it was always so busy and colorful, with music and tons of people, tourist and locals alike. I loved it on the weekends, you could always count on something going on, good food, amazing music, lots of old people dancing. We wandered around the streets, went to the weird house on calle 64 with the red light and scared ourselves, then decided it’s probably some project for someone in school and there’s a video camera taping what people do when they approach the house. It’s a really weird place,but I don’t’ feel like descrbing it right now. I didn’t get any sleep that night, well maybe like an hour and a half. I was packing and writing notes to people and cleaning my room and taking care of things. It’s hard to pack up your life of 6 months knowing you’ll never live in that room again. The last thing I did was take the pictures off my mirror, and when they were gone I knew I was really leaving. I slept in my hammock a few hours for the last time, and woke up before the sun. It was surreal getting up that early with all my stuff packed. Gloria and I got dressed and ran out the door, I feigned having left my cell phone charger inside so I could put the flowers, card, and gift of Yumbalam hot sauce on the table. I hope they all got to read the card, I haven’t talked to anyone from there except Carolina so far so I don’t know. When we got to the airport I had like half an hour before my plane left, and Carolina, cristina, and her mom came to say goobye too even though it was like 5:30 in the morning. I really appreciated them being there, I’m so lucky to have met such amazing people in my short time in merida. They really felt like my sisters, and dona silvia was like my third mom (mom being my first, Gloria being the second, and silvia being the third ;) I checked my luggage (which luckily wasn’t overweight despite the six shot glasses and tiny bottles of tequila that cris gave me to give to friends from home) and walked to the security gate. Saying goodbye to Gloria was so hard, I was so used to seeing her every day, talking to her about all my little and big problems, laughing about my awful haircut or my crazy adventures on the bus, hearing stories about her other students, dancing to the mariachis, singing little kids songs in the kitchen… she was a perfect Mexican mama, I really can’t thank god enough for the opportunity I had to meet her, she’s a great woman. I hope that she can come to Chicago to visit all her daughters that live in the city, I would love to show her around, she deserves it. I gave Carolina and cris little bracelets and cards, I couldn’t express in a few words and a tiny regalito how much they meant to me, but I think they already knew. They were the best friends I had in merida and my trip would have been so much less fulfilling without them. A lot of the best moments of my trip were with them, we were always laughing and having an awesome time, no matter what we did. People like that don’t come along all the time, I’m so glad for that fateful day we ended up in mambo café even though we didn’t plan to go there, and we ran into Carolina and her sister and brother. They were so open and willing to share everything they had, I always felt so comfortable with them. I learned a lot about being comfortable with who you are and always being able to laugh at yourself, it makes life so much better when you don’t take things so seriously. I just watched a moth commit suicide. Poor thing flew up into the lamp and immediately fell dead on the desk. I think that’s a sign I should go to bed too. There’s a lot more to tell about the end of the trip. I spent a week in Chihuahua with Elias, we went to the Sierra Madre and frolicked in cascades and valles de hongos, drank indio and played poker, and now I’m in Arizona with carrie and kevin and max just got in but he’ll be away a lot for the wedding. Tomorrow I’m going to eat lunch with carrie and an amazing old deaf lady named mary louise, so I’m pretty excited about that. If I ever try to complain about my life, please punch me in the face, because I am so blessed to have all the opportunities that I have, and to have been touched by all the people in my life. I love you all, I truly do. Thank you so much for being there for me and for simply being. I don’t know why I got so lucky. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 11th, 2006
11:33 pm	llorona thats what i am these past three days. well it really started on wednesday, but if i thought it was hard to say goodbye when i left puerto rico or overlook farm man i had no idea what i was in for. the two hardest still wait for me tomorrow, mi mama mexicana, gloria, and carolina and cristina. can you get dehydrated from crying? i hope not, because i already have enough stuff to carry. this has been one of the best times of my life. i´ve learned more than i could ever put on a page, about my self, about mexico, about people in general, things that are important in life, and that even though some things seem impossible, they probably aren´t. i remember a few weeks after i arrived and i felt lost, i hadn´t really met any good friends and although i was really enjoying myself i kept thinking "this isn´t what i had in mind..." but then i figured it doesn´t matter what you expected, what you have then and now is what you have to work with. there´s no changing what´s giving to, now matter how hard you try to plan. you just have to flexible and patient and realize that even though it seems ridiculous or hard at the time, a few months later you´ll realize why it had to be that way. i can only talk in general terms right now because if i start mentioning names and cuentos, stories and things i´ve done, stuff we´ve laughed about, i´ll be here the rest of the night and i´ll probably start crying in the internet cafe, which i don´t want. all that said, i´m really excited about seeing everyone, i´ll just have to convince myself this isn´t the end of anything, just the beginning of another etapa, as they say in español. gracias por todo, to everyone that i´ve met here, everyone that has touched my life in the past six months, thanks for making the experience what it was. even people like yach kim, a mayan man who tried to sell cigars and told us about the mayan culture and offered to buy me a juice. he kind of creeped me out everytime he popped up in el centro (and the one time in chichen itza, of all places), but thats what makes stories like this so good. oh alejandra guzman, your music is so cheesy but i love it. i love mexico, i do. que vibre mexico! we won, by the way, against Iran, 3-1. it was an excellent game. god i´m going to miss this place (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 8th, 2006
12:27 pm	just despidiendo-ing While i´m waiting for the slowest computer in the World to open my document, i think i´ll do a little bit of reflection. I don’t know what is going on behind me but I think someone is being killed. Unlike the computer labs at depaul, the ones at la UADY are generally loud and… there´s another word but I don´t remember how to spell it. Mucho bulla, that’s all I can say. It´s been a week of “last times”. Every day this week I´ve thought “this is my last ___day in Mérida” or “this could be the last time I walk this street,” “take this bus,” just about everything. I´m very melodramatic. But six months is a long time, and just thinking about the fact that my life is about to change dramatically, again, makes me sad. I´m so excited to see everyone at home and to eat spinach salads again and ride my bike and lose this belly i´ve gained, hecho de una mezlca de cerveza y panuchos, pero my life is here right now and a change this big makes me nervous. But, such is life. If I didn´t want to deal with the hard parts I shouldn´t sign up for programs like this. It´s worth it, but my heart is going to break a little bit on Monday morning. Yesterday I had to say goodbye to my niños y doña gredes y todos en el vivero. Oops! Sorry I didn´t mean to switch to Spanish. I had to say goodbye to the kids and the lady that works in the vivero and all the people en la colonia. It was really sad, especially because little boys don´t express their emotions very well so they just kept saying “i´m mad” but I didn´t realize it was because I was leaving. I said something like “ah I hate it when you guys complain” but now I want to eat my words because doña gredes told me that they were just said I was going. Another student from Merida is probably going to come and worth with them but they were telling doña gredes “no one is like susanna, we don´t want another maestra”. Mi vida, i´m going to miss them so much! I was fine until I watched Oscar and Pancho walk away from the vivero and disappear around the corner, and then I started to cry. They left one by one, and every bus that passed by to take me home I ignored. It´s different than leaving a city, because it´s not a tourist place, it´s mine. They know me there, I walked around there in the boiling sun feeling like I was probably glowing from my gringa skin, I ate tortas with them and we played “pesca pesca” en the park. I was there long enough that we planed lettuce on the first day and on the last day we harvested it, y ya. I hope they have some idea how much they mean to me, they helped me with my Spanish, they taught me patience, and that paletas with chile are way better than the regular kind. I think that when I get back Justin and I will get along famously, because all the little boys in the vivero reminded me of him and I learned out to deal with the craziness without getting mad. De hecho, me encantan ellos. Some things just sound better in Spanish. When it came time to say goodbye to Doña Gredes the sun had already gone down, only she and I were left. We were sitting in lawn chairs in front of the vivero, watching the people come back from work and talking about the weather. “¿Hay mucho viento ahorita verdad? (there´s a lot of wind right now, right?) She nodded without saying anything, and then the bus came and I had to go. But it killed me because she´s not the most emotional person and she started crying and so then I cried of course. Then I had to get on the bus and even though it was dark I put on my sunglasses. I couldn´t decide which made me look weirder, that I was crying alone on the bus or that I was wearing sunglasses. I opted for the sunglasses. So that’s over. Soon i´ll have to say goodbye to Gloria, Jose Luis, los nietos, Carolina, su familia, Daniel, the English guys, ay guey. This has been an experience buenisisisisima. So excellent that I can´t describe it. I can´t wait to show you all pictures of all the places i´ve been and the people i´ve met. The other day I even took a picture of the table so you can see what kind of stuff I eat every day. And don´t worry, i´ll bring home some chile. Grandpa would be proud of me, I pretty much put chile on everything these days. Even fruit! I need to eat like 17 mangos before lunes (Monday) because I love them and they are delicious. Pues, a lo major la proxima vez que escribo estaré el norte, pero quien sabe. Cuidense muchisimo and gracias por leer mi diario! Well, probable the next time I write i´ll be in the north of the country, but who knows. Take care everyone and thanks for reading my diary! Love sus (Comment on this)
Friday, June 2nd, 2006
5:52 pm	EZLN p.s. (in this case, pre-script) i got new glasses, i cut my hair (i´m not gonna lie i kind of have a mullet) yesterday night a guy on my bus got off and followed me for ten minutes walking to ask me out to coffee (i said no), i met a mexican version of max and adopted him as my brother (his name is felipe and he´s extremely tall), and i´m leaving merida 10 days. i´m going to start freaking out soon. So my final project for spanish class is a 20 minute presentation (although here they use the word "exhibicion" which is sounds so much scarier and more official) about a topic of my choice. I chose Los Zapatistas y el EZLN (ejército zapatista de la liberación nacional - national zapatista liberation army) and i´m finding it so interesting. the most recent article i read was from a website of an organization that fights drug trafficking in latin america and they pointed out that the news about the zapatistas published in english often is reported with a false spin, in that they insinuate that the zapatistas are involved with illegal drug activity even though the zapatistas have a strict policy against drugs within the organizacion. i think maybe thats one of the reasons that a lot of people in the states are suspicious of the movement (if they know about it at all) because of the way the media presents it. It could be the same situation in Yucatan, because they majority of the mexicans i´ve talked to who are skeptics of marcos (the subcomandante of the EZLN) actually know very little about the zapatistas. I was pretty skeptical too before i started my research but the more i read the more convinced i am. on the surface it might seem like just another guerrilla group but the truth is that it´s not. Since their founding in 1983 and the uprising in january of 1994 they have been extremely consistent in their demands and their tactics. The government of Mexico (and probably all the governments all around the world) have a hard time understanding their goals and aspirations because "La Otra Campaña" (the other campaign) isn´t looking to gain power, they don´t want to run the country, they just want their human rights recognized and they say that until that happens they aren´t going to quit. Their demands aren´t exactly controversial, who can deny that the indigenas of chiapas (and really every human being) has the right to liberty, land, food, clean water, shelter, justice, freedom, and democracia? One of the other things i read that really intrigued me was that the way the representation works within the EZLN assures that all the decisions made are supported by the people in the pueblos because it´s not a top down government. Technically the government of the united states and the government of mexico aren´t top down either, but we can see that the big decisions are often made without our consent (the war in iraq, for example?) the zapatistas practice democracy in the way it was meant to be, they don´t try to run all the pueblos from one station, but rather the pueblos themselves are autonomous and the decisions are made when everyone is present. it takes longer but the results are honest. if the representative from the pueblo doesn´t do a good job, they people have the right to appoint a new one. It´s really quite amazing what they´ve down down in the mountains of southeast mexico. ´what is even more amazing is that from the time the EZLN was founded in 1983 to 1994 no one knew about it. The fact that the existence of an guerilla army made of of thousands of people could be kept a secret for 10 years is pretty impressive. well, i should go and continue my research. but i just thought you all should know a little big about the zapatistas. plus this helped me formulate my thoughts a little big. by the way, i saw subcomandante marcos when he came to speak in merida, ski mask, pipe, and all. i didn´t really know that much about him at the time but the more i learn the more i´m glad i got to see him, i think we´ll definitely be hearing more and more about the zapatistas in the future. i feel like there´s a revolution coming... (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006
3:27 pm	oigan i don´t have a lot of time to write, i´m about to run off to the colonia. i love the kids there but i´m ready to have some free time. i´m there a lot and it´s such a long bus ride to e. zapata. ademas, there´s not aire acondicionado and i pretty much sweat all my 70 % water en my body on the way there. equis, only two more weeks. ay guey, no puedo creerlo. i just bought my plane tickets (various) and it´s official. i´m leaving the 12th of june for monterrey, en monterrey i grab a 12 hour bus ride to chihuahua. arrive in the morning, and visit with elias for a week. the 20th i go to arizona to visit my sister and her house that i´ve never been too (woohoo!) en the 23 max gets there, then i leave for home on the 26th. i´ll be home in about a month. there´s still a lot of traveling left, but i´ll have to say goodbye to my mexican home sooner than i wnat to. i´m so exciteda bout seeing all of you (haha i just spelled "of" phonetically but in spanish "ov" i´m oficially an idiot) joanna leaves on sunday. i haven´t hung out with her much in the past few weeks, but i just love that girl. she´s crazy and she has such a good heart. as we say here, es de bueno corazon. we have an understanding too, because we know we are different but it´s okay, and i can´t wait to hang out with her in chicago. it´ll be so weird to seethe people i got to know in mexico in chicago, what a different backdrop for a friendship. speaking of friendship, i spent all weekend with carolina and her family and i´m going to miss them so much! carolina and i have become super close and she makes me laugh like crazy. thats okay because i can come back someday, but i´m going to cry like a baby when i get on the plane. about halfway through this program i was kind of upset that i hadn´t met anyone (guy wise) but now i know it just wasn´t meant to be. things just turned out better this way. because it would´ve been a big mess to leave, i wouldn´t have gotten to know so many people, and... well there are other reasons but i can´t think of them. God always knows what he´s doing, i really should remember that. anyway, ya me voy a la colonia. trying to teach 12 year old boys about organizacion can be a little trying to i don´t have a whole lot of ganas to go, but ay voy de todos modos. hugs to everyone, three weeks and i´ll be back in the states. weird... sus (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 18th, 2006
9:04 pm	August, 1996 “Dear Diary, I can’t wait until girls camp next summer, it’s going to be so much fun! OH NO OH CRAP oh DAMN! Holly’s going to be there next year. She’ll ruin everything! I guess I’ll just have to ignore her, but how can I she’s so annoying?” ….That was just a little tidbit of my very first diary, before we ever had internet and when computers were still the size of rooms. Actually it was like 10 years ago so I´m pretty sure they weren´t that big. But you get the idea. I don´t know why I just thought of that. Maybe because I read an email from my Aunt and she said she was thinking about how much I´ve grown, from being a little fuzz head to running around with transvestites in Mexico. I´m making a reference to the picture from carnival just there, I don´t actually do that on a regular basis, although I personally think the majority of them are quite nice. Anyway… I just got back from the colonia, and so i´m all dirty and sweaty and tired but happy. And I still have a flower behind my ear that the kids gave me. They actually decorated me in flowers today, I had colas de gato draped over my head and like seventeen behind both ears, I was holding one in my teeth and another was hanging from my necklace. There was no mirror so I don´t know how I looked, but I imagine quite strange. That’s okay, I’m used to looking quite strange, or at least feeling like I look quite strange to everyone around me. I´ve been thinking recently about how huge I must look to everyone, because i´m taller than probably the majority of the people in Mérida and I’m a girl on top of that. AND I have blue eyes. All the makings of a giant gringa freak. Haha, I say this all in broma, kind of. But the way you look to other people, especially in another country, is something you´ll never comprehend completely and so I like to imagine how they must view me. Me pone reír. Ennnntonces… so I was pretty mad at livejournal the other day for deleting my journal entry, so I had to take a break for a few days or else I would´ve tried something crazy like punching the computer. Ay my legs hurt, I think it´s been far too long since I went running. That’s another thing, you should all be preparing yourselves to receive the new, Spanish speaking, tanner, and somewhat fatter Sus. I know i´ve gained wait, you don´t have to worry about hurting my feelings if you say something. The thing about Mexico is they aren’t so vain and considering that calling someone “little fatty” (gordito) is more like an affectionate nickname, they have pretty good body images. Or what am I trying to say? That they are honest with the way they look, and because I am here and fatter, I can acknowledge that I am here, and fatter, without being all self conscience and stupid about it. I know i´ll go back to normal when I get home and stop eating pounds of meat and white bread, so why worry? Duh duh duh dahhhh. I think it´s actually good for me, to come to terms with how my body is and not always wishing it was some other way. I just want to be healthy, that’s the goal. I suppose you all want to hear about what i´ve been doing, and not my self body image revelations. So yah, no más, se lo juro. So what I wrote about the other day was our adventure in Tikal because it was quite humorous. What follows is a somewhat (I hope) shorter version of the original, but I will do my best to converse the wit and clever prose that the first contained. I think I´ve already failed, at best it´s a cheap knock off of Nancy McKbben style. Tikal and Flores was nearly our last stop, was our last stop unless you count 24 hours in Belize. Which you should, because it´s a crazy place and 24 hours there felt like three days. But anyway, We went straight to Flores after saying goodbye to our friends from Switzerland (the bike guy who is riding from south America to the states, and the lady who was traveling with her three year old) and other people we met at Las Marias (our posada in Semuc Champey). We left at five in the morning, me, Roo, Eve (girl from Canada that we met on the way to Coban) and Bob, driving with other Guatemalans through the misty mountaintops (subtle “The Hobbit” reference). After about half an hour in the bus we ran into a roadblock that was put up by local teachers who were protesting the ley that, oh sorry, law that only pays teachers for the school year and they don´t get anything in the summer. They was also an issue with land rights for the indigenous peoples but I can´t remember what it was. So we had to get down from the bus and walk through the roadblock, we must have looked pretty funny, an international band of backpackers walking through a protest at 6 in the morning. We got our fair share of “hello!¨”s (in English, mind you) from the Guatemalans, and picked up another bus on the other side. When we got to Flores it proved to be a strange place, a tiny on an island in the middle of a lake, connected inland by a road that wasn´t very long, and to get from one side of the other you could walk or take these tiny little toy cars called, maldita no me acuerdo, I don´t remember what they were called but they had funny names and they were only big enough for two short people in the back and the driver in the front. I think they only had three wheels, and I think a strong wind would´ve blown us right over. I took one across to the mainland to use a cash machine while we were waiting for our shuttle to Tikal because Flores doesn´ñt have any ATMs. And inland they didn´t have any bread, which I found ironic. When I got back to Flores I found out that Bob didn´t have any more in his bank account, and was waiting to hear from his parents to see if they could put more in. In the meantime I, who had already been paying for Roo because his bank didn’t exist in Guatemala, had to pay for Bobby too and I didn´t realize until we got to Tikal that I really didn´t have enough to pay for lodging for the night AND food. It was somewhat of a predicament, but luckily we had bought bread and cheese (if you can call that crappy American stuff cheese) in Flores, and bob had some delicious canned meat that his host mom packed for him. We had actually been carting the stuff around for the entire two weeks of our vacation, we hadn´t had the heart to throw it away but it´s not the kind of think you just eat unless you have no other option. And that night we had no other option… Picture the scene: Bob, Roo, And I sitting on the cement floor under our palapa, next to the rented (highly overpriced) hammocks with their mosquito nets, a tiny candle our only source of light. We are all dirty, exhausted, and starving, and Roo is struggling with the first can of meat, aptly named “jamón del Diablo” (ham of the devil). We finally figure out what the stupid key is for that comes attached to the bottom, and can’t decide whether to be excited that we opened it or sick because of what we are about to eat. We decided to be excited, and I had the opportunity to be able to spread my meat on my sandwich for the first time in my life and slap on a piece of orange plastic cheese food. Buen provecho! After the first sandwich and our attempt to roast the spam stuff in it’s own lid and juice over our candle, we started laughing and didn’t stop for the next twenty minutes. The absurdity of the situation was just too much, plus the fact that the canned meat wasn´t actually that bad. It may have been the hunger talking, I can´t be sure. Anywho, when Eve came back from her dinner (she did have enough money to eat something more tame, like spaghetti) and found us sitting there, the smell of the devil´s ham wafting through the campgrounds, she probably wanted to be sick. Eve is a vegetarian. We then set about getting ready for bed in our hammocks. I was actually excited about sleeping in a hammock outside under the stars, but little did I know the night I was in for… The first time I tested the hammock it felt a little low and a little strange, but the hammocks of Guatemala are different from those of Yucatan. “I´m just not used to it” I said to myself. Then I thought it looked different from Bobby´s and Roo´s, but I figured it was just a double hamaca o algo asi. And then I thought I really had just gained a lot of weight, seeing as I was hanging inches from the hard floor of the palapa. But then Bobby tried it out and the same thing happened. Then this guy from Texas who we met randomly came over and decided it was his personal responsibility to fix my hammock and worked for the next half an hour with his miners flashlight attached to his forehead. After untying like five knots and taking off my mosquito net he declared the hammock fit for sleeping, and took off. I thought at the time he might have made it better, but as the night wore on and I stretched closer and closer and was finally sitting on the ground, I decided that I would’ve been better off without his “help”, pinche Texan. I spent the night trying my best to get comfortable in that God forsaken hammock and failing, miserably. About halfway through the night I got really cold but had no blanket, so I used my net for a blanket but as it is filled with holes, it didn´t do much good. I heard Roo and bob and even Eve, in her tiny little hammock she bought in Honduras, sleeping soundly and I silently cursed them while I listened to the howler monkeys scream like jaguars in the trees above me and hoped that no pumas would come, as I would be the first to go. At 4:30 in the morning I still hadn´t slept a bit when “bird man” (as he called himself) the tour guide came around waking people up for his sunrise hike. “Italianos!” He yelled into our palapa, looking for the crazies who had decided to get up that early and walk around the ruins. He didn’t find them there, but if I had been capable of crawling out of that sack thing they called a hammock I may or may not have punched him in the neck. I think I slept about an hour after that, and when I finally pulled myself out of whatever I had been sleeping in, I felt like someone had been pummling me, all night. The day at the ruins turned into four hours because I was absolutely dead after a dinner of spam and a sleepless night. But we saw Tikal (it was really big), and a bunch of howler monkeys and that is what is important. Ooh and wild tarantulas, that was pretty sweet. More stories for later, that’s all I can muster right now. I wish I could somehow just think my stories and the words would come out on the computer. Dad can you invent that or something? Please? AH I have to go now, my novela is about to start- the ending line of last night´s episode “la mujer que te dejó no era yo… era mi hermana gemela” translation: “the woman who left you wasn´t me, it was my twin sister…” of course it was Paz, of course it was. I love you all! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 15th, 2006
8:41 pm	These are pictures from Emiliano Zapata Sur II, the colonia where i work http://depaul.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021126&l=900aa&id=22000310 (Comment on this)
8:36 pm	Thats a picture from February and Carnaval 2006! If you like what you see, check out the link below for more http://depaul.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021131&l=21ab2&id=22000310 (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 14th, 2006
12:59 pm	NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo. i hate livejournal i`m never writign in it again. i just wrote for an HOUR and i lost every chingada thing that i wrote. i swear i`m going to freak OUT. pinche maldita puta madre ahhhhh. well. thats all then. i`ll write again when i get over how much i hate livejournal. sorry. i wrote about all my advenutes and it was really funny and i don`t think i`ll ever be witty again. from now on i`m writing everything in lists so i can re do them quickly if they get lost. no more imagination, no more anecdotes. pure lists. i hate my life right now. an hour of my thoughts, lost to the world. maybe it´s not that big of a deal, but puta madre i`m pissed. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 5th, 2006
5:06 pm	jeez sorry everyone, i know it`s been quite a while since i`ve written. when we got back from vacation i had two days of rest and then i jumped into everything again, except more so because i`ve started going to e.zapata sur II more often and i`ve been staying there until like 7:30 8:00 at night and so I barely have time to do my homework before i fall into bed. but things are going fantastically well, i can`t believe i only have like 5 weeks left. everytime i think about it i want to cry a little bit. so i don`t think about it too much, because i can`t go around crying all the time. people already look at my weird because i`m a guera, and that would just make it worse. I`m also thinkinga bout buying a giant sombrero to protect myself from the burning sun when i walk to the vivero in emiliano zapata sur, but i think they might think i was insane... i don`t want to draw more attention to myself than is absolutely necessary. lets see... so i started my community service work like a month ago, but i don`t think i`ve written about it very much. i`m working next to the community center in emiliano zapata sur II, one of the poorest colonias en Mérida. It`s pretty far south, it takes me like an hour by bus to get there and I go at mid day so the sun is just absolutely horrendous, but i`m getting used to it. I go three or four times a week and I work with a group of niños and the Señora that works there, her name is Doña Gredis. She`s the nicest lady, I think she`s like 37 years old, she`s probably half my size and she laughs a lot. We get along very well. My group of kids consists mainly of 11-12 year old boys, which can be trying at times because it`s hard enough to manage them at that age when you speak the language fluently, but when I`m trying to organize them and I can`t think of the word for "wheelbarrow" it`s impossible. But we get along, if they get really out of hand I just pretend that I`m leaving "YA me voy, estoy molesta con ustedes porque no me escuchan" and that usually gets their attention. I definitely need to organize myself better before I go, the past few weeks have been pretty casual. I show up, they wander in, we work in the beds for a while, and then maybe play a game or two or just talk until I have to go. When I got back from Guatemala I brought in all the currency from the different countries I had visited and we looked at a map and plotted out where I had been, where they lived, etc. It reminded me of geography club that we used to go to when I was little. I would like to do more activities like that, but I don`t have much time to plan them. We`ll see what the next few weeks bring. The kids that come the most consistently live down the street from the vivero, i pass there house on the way from the bus so i always stop in and talk to their parents. There are three of them, Melchor (he`s adorable) Gaspar (also adorable but is always picking fights) and Reyna (the little girl). On Tuesday their parents invited me to cenar con ellos, i mean to have dinner with them. So i went and we ate tortas and talked about their lives and they showed me pictures of the kids when they were little. They are so kind to me, I really appreciate all the hospitality, they are always offereing refrescos and snacks o un vaso de agua, or just that i come in out of the sun for a minute. Their house is just a one room cinder block building, about the size of my living room at home, but they five of them live there all together. it`s kind of amazing really, because we get so used to having a lot of space that i think we would kill each other in those conditions. thats one of teh things i`ve noticed about the people here. it`s that they have so much patience. whether it be waiting for a bus driver while he pops in a store to buy a drink, or waiting in line forever for something, or cramming way too many people into a bus thats definitely too small, they hardly ever complain. i guess ìt all depends on what you are used to, but i think americans could learn a good lesson in patience from mexican people. i think we have the tendency to think that the world will end if we are five minutes late, or if we waste half an hour of our day waiting for something. But really, life goes on. I hope I carry the patience that I`ve learned here back to the states, because it really is a virtue. annnnd tahts enough with the preaching. I`m going to do a quick summary of the rest of vacation before i go. i have a date tonight with a guy named Marco, he`s 22, from Chiapas, plays the guitar and sings, and is studying psychology. i`ll find out more tonight. After Antigua (where I climbed a volcano- it was suuuuhhweet!) we went to Cobán to catch the bus to Lanquin. The bus to Coban took forever and it was sooo unpleasently hot and i couldn`t really move my legs because the guy in front of me had his seat back, but roo and i made sandwiches which consisted of a whole tomato in between two slices of bread. It wasn`t a culinary masterpiece but it satisfied ourhunger. roo said it was the most pathetic thing he`s ever eaten, but that was before our spam and cheese dinner at tikal. little did he know, little did he know... when we finally got to coban we had been on the road for like 7 hours, but we found out that the last bus for lanquin was leaving in like 10 minutes so we ran to the bank and when we got back we found that the van was full. or so we though, but since then we`ve learned a thing or two about the guatemalans ability to cram as many people as humanely possible into vehicles. the chofer just kept saying "adelante, adelante" and every one more person that was crammed into that tiny van was a little miracle. i honestly don`t know how they fit 23 people in there, must be some mayan magic or something, en serio. i ended up sitting crammed intbetween the driver and the next seat, i think i was sitting on the engine so my butt was on fire for the next two hours, and i couldn`t move my legs. but you know, it was kind of fun in it`s own ridiculous way. i got to sit next to celia, the little girl that was traveling with her mom through central america, and she kept my occupied. she kept taking stuff out of my purse and asking me where it was from, because i think that was one of the few spanish phrases she had down pat. she was from Switzerland but here mom is teaching her spanish at the ripe age of 3 years. she saved my sanity, thats for sure. Lanquin was well worth it though, it was a tiny little townwith hardly anything in it, all you could here were the birds and the bugs chirping at night. i had a huge bed to myself that night (the first of the trip) and slept like a rock. crap. i`m terrible at summerizing. i also can`t spell anymore, and i have to go. i``m never going to catch up! here`s what i did this weekend: Friday- carolina and I and friends from the facultad de educacion went to a gay bar on the outskirst of the city called Pride. yes yes, in english. it was quite fun, you don`t really see that many gay people in Merida because this is mexico and it`s not quite as open as Chicago. we danced a lot, and saw a drag show. i think it was funny, i didn`t really understand most of it. Saturday I went to the Colonia and saturday night to casa de todos with bobby, roo, rob, and bob`s brother. after we had been there for about 15 minutes i realized i was the only girl in the whole place. i say i`m getting quite used to that actually, so it didn`t feel weird. Sunday I went to an orthodox church! it was so nice to be back, when i walked in and i heard the chanters i let out a huge sigh, it was lke i had come home. i always forget how much i love orthodoxy until i go without it for a while. the priest was really nice, as were all the people who go there. i`m looking foward to going back. Sunday night i went to a quince años birthda yparty with carolina and her family. it was cute, the birthday girl had on a big fancy dress and carolinà´s mom made cochinita, which is this delicious roasted pig thing. i know, i know, i was a vegetarian. but when i got to carolina`s house on saturday the two halves of the pig were sitting in large pans in her living room, so at least i know there wasn`t too much inhumane processing invovled. i don`t think it takes a lot of giant machinery to cut a big in half, i`m prety sure it was local meat. ANYway, we drank some sol and ate some tacos and then went to see Cuba Libre, which was good, although GAel Garcia was hardly in it and thats why we went. That night we hung out in el centro becuase there was a montón de athletes that were in town for a university sports competition, country wide. we ended up talking to some guys from guadalajara for a while,. futbol players. cute, nice. they serenaded me. one of them kept trying to convince me to go live with him en tepic, but i told him i really just couldn`t do that. it`s not pratical. and he told me americans aren`t very romantic. that may be true, but i can`t leave my family for some guy named pepe who plays futbol. monday i went to an almuerzo with carolina`s family, ate a mango, swam in the pool, played with the kiddies. found a new boyfriend named gustavo, he`s 3 years old and we shared some lunas (like m&ms) together. i think it was meant to be. monday night back to el centro para pescar, we ended up hanging out with the dudes from tepic again for a little while, then i went home. ay wey that was almost a week ago. how time flyes. anyway i`ve gotta go get ready for my date, les quiero a ustedes! sus (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 24th, 2006
5:41 pm	aqui estoy so i made it back from vacation safe and sound, which is actually quite a feat when i think about where i´ve been. we ended up going from Merida to Palenque and San Cristobal (in Chiapas) then headed south to Guatemala where we stopped in Lago de Atitlan, met a lot of hippies in San Pedro and went a little crazy at the full moon party. Nexto to Antigua for two nights and got to see the end of the Semana Santa celebrations, and then after a full day of traveling that included a 2 hour ride on dirt roads with 23 people packed into a van, basked in the sun in Lanquin in Semuc Champey and swam through caves with nothing more than a candle and a adolescent Guatemalan guide named Domingo. After that we hiked half dead and half starved through the great Mayan city of Tikal, sweated a lot in Flores and drank water out of gallon jugs, crossed the border to Belize and wandered the streets of the city marveling at the fact that everything was in English, stayed the night in the weirdest beach town of my life, and finally made it back to Mérida yesterday at about 9 pm, dreaming of my bed in my house and Gloria´s cooking instead of spam and cheese sandwiches. Thats the short version of what happened, the long version is, well, really long. Thats what happens when Bobby and I pack our bags and head to another country with three British guys and no plans whatsoever. It was a really amazing trip, I met so many cool and inspiring people (some of them really inspired me never to do drugs in my life, but it takes all kinds) and saw some of the most beautiful places of my life. I´m going to start the story but i think it will take a while to write about everything that happened. Here goes nothing... Well, I think I left off in San Cristobal más o menos. and because I just spent 20 minutes recapping the trip to Panchan and San Cristobal because I didn{t realize I already wrote about it, I now have run out of time to write about the other week and a half that we spent traveling. Maldita memoria, I wish I had checked before I started. OH well, I{ll just write a little more and then go. Lago de Atitlan was absolutely beautiful so we ended up spending three nights there. The first night we hung out with the Irish guys at a party down by the lake side. I think it was at a hostel or something like that, it had a lot of teepees and crappy bathrooms so thats what I concluded. We sat around the bonfire for a while, drank Gallo (the most popular Guatemalan beer) and talked with Kevin about why the Irish don{t like Bono, and met another crazy coked out Irish guy named Paul who had been in San Pedro for far too long I believe. That night I almost fell asleep in the hammock on the porch in the hostel but then i forced myself into the room that I was sharing with a Scottish woman named Valerie that we met on the bus. The following day we changed hotels and found Rob and Steve finally. We accidently left them in Panajachel because they stopped to help Jim with his seventeen hundred pounds of luggage and they lost us in the crowd. We, unfortunately, didn´t notice until we arrived at the hostel an hour and a half later, and by then the last boat had left so there was nothing we can do. They ended up staying with Jim in Pana and heard more crazy stories. Apparently he worked for the military a long time ago but has been traveling for 20 years ever since he contracted HIV and has been known to sneak into Mayan ruins while he was tripping on acid and get caught by the Mexican police. We also found out that his suitcases are full of souviners, including a collection of patchy pants that would make any hippie jealous and probably 30 kilos of silver rings with giant stones in them. He´s quite the character, that Jim. I wonder if I´ll ever see him again... We wandered over to San Marcos later in the afternoon after consuming lots of banana bread that the little girls sell from colorful baskets on the street. I think Rupert actually ate like 15 loaves in the three days we were there, but I can´t be sure. We took a truck to the other town, we got to stand up in the back and hold onto the side rails, a big old group of gringos in a truck just like always. But San Marcos was nice, it´s mas tranquilo then San Pedro, with a lot of places to go an meditate and have your shakras balanced or whatever they do. We found some nice flat rocks and swam in the lake for a while. I jumped off a high one but I think I had a mini heart attack on the way down because it was higher than I thought and so I only did it once. ahhh crap it{s almost seven and i{m supposed to meet the kids for dinner to celebrate bob´s birthday tomorrow. i{ll finish this later, cuidense! sus (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 14th, 2006
5:26 pm	impresionante thats really the only word i can find to adequately describe this place. my current location is Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala. For those of you who don´t know, lago in spanish means lake. We are staying in San Pedro, a little hippie town on the shore, and it is absolutely gorgeous. We got here in Wednesday after leaving San Cristobal en la mañana. They told us at the travel place that we would arrive at the lake at 3 pm, but we ended up traveling for 12 hours and we didn´t arrive until 8 pm. Kind of long, we had to stop a bunch of times and because we were going with a group of like 30 people from San Cristobal it took forever to cross the border. It was my first ever border crossing and it was pretty much everything I expected. Except that I cóuldn´t pinpoint the exact minute i crossed from Mexico to Guatemala. I thought maybe there would be a big gate or something but no, a few armed guards, nada mas. I actually had some trouble leaving Mexico porque I forgot mi visa, the tourist visa I have for study abroad, and so I had to explain to the guy what happened. I just didn´t know that I needed it, I´m a student in Mexico, I´ll be here until June blah blah blah. He was really nice and seemed sympathic so he just let me through. I guess he believed I was being genuine, gracias a dios. Anyway, so we crossed the border into Guatemala y despues we all loaded up in one big bus to ride to Panachal. I ended up sitting inbetween a group of five guys from Ireland who were traveling around Mexico and Central America and they lived in Chicago for two months about five years ago. We talked all about the city, they had the most crazy living situation I have ever heard of. There were 23 of them in a 2 bedroom apartment in Lincoln Park. 23! 23 Irish people living basically on top of each other for 2 months in the summer. They didn´t even have air conditioning, and being irish they said that on any given night of the week there were at least 12 people drinking in the apartment. None of them were studying, just working random jobs and hanging out, so they didn´t really have to be very responsible. They are good guys and they´ve all got their lives together, they just like to have fun. It´s funny because they are so well educated and have a lot of work experience but I guess when they went to CHicago they just wanted waiter jobs y cosas asi, so all the places they applied were like "why do you want to work here again?". anyway, so we chatted the whole time, they were traveling with 2 french canadians, a canadian, and a girl from belgium who they met in Oaxaca. Also in the bus was a caracter like i´ve never met before in my life, a 40 year old guy named Jim from Cincinnati. This guy should really have his own show, I swear. He has severe arthritis, hair down to the middle of his back, lots of tatoos en todos lados, and enough huge rings on his hands to sink a ship. The majority of the stories he told us involved him "trippin´ hard" on one drug or another. He´s also HIV positive because he has some disease where he has to get blood transfusions pretty often, and one batch that they used infected a whole group of people with HIV. Because of the hospitals mistake, he gets money every month and lives and travels off of that. He also told us that the reason for this trip was because he wants to lose weight, and when he goes to central america he always loses weight. As good a reason as any I guess. Oh, and I forgot to mention his walking stick that he goes everywhere with, and the copious amounts of luggage that also travel with him. You´d think someone who can´t manuever very well anyway wouldn´t want to carry a lot of things, but he doesn´t really follow the mainstream (to say the least.) Everywhere he goes he has to get help from like two or three people to push his gigantic maleta over these cobbled roads. He´s probably the most interesting/crazy/amusing person i´ve met on this trip. Or maybe that I´ve ever met, it´s hard to say right now. Everyone in the bus ended up in San Pedro, I sort of feel like we are one big happy internacional traveling family. When we finally arrived in Panachal there was an awesome lightening storm over above the volcanos that surround the lake. It was like the storm was taking place in the clouds, it was absolutely beautiful. It looked like God was cooking something up in the sky, sometimes it was just flashes of light and sometimes we could see the zig zag of the lightening ripping through the night. It was amazing. We then proceeding to see three dogs humping each other simultaneously, a nice welcome to Panachal and the lake. San Pedro is about 30 minutes by lancha from Panachal, on the otherside of the lake. It´s a definite hippie hangout, I´ve seen more dreadlocks in the past three days than ever in my whole life. Lots of them live here, selling artesanias y cosas asi, but there are of course a ton of tourists too. It´s not like Cancun at all because it´s hard to get to and it doesn´t attract the "typical american tourist", there are a lot of europeans here, lot of mexicans, and of course guatemalans. it´s interesting to see the differences between the Mayans in Mexico and the Mayans in Guatemala. THey seem happier here, but I really couldnt´say for sure. Everyone is very friendly and the little kids are adorable. THe percentage of women who wear the traditional dress is much higher than in Yucatan, even girls my age wear the colorful skirt and top of the guatemalan mayans. In Merida it´s mostly the older women who still conform to the traditional outfit. There´s so much more to tell but I´m tired of being on the internet. Today the British boys split for Antigua and Bobby and I decided to stay for another night. We found a room with a family for 25 quetzales a night (about equal to 4 bucks) and today we went horseback riding up the volcano. It was one of the most beautiful things I´ve ever seen, and my horse, Rosa, was the best horse ever. We went flying down some of the paths, and I mean flying. I´ve never gone that fast on a horse before because I´ve really only done it lke 4 times in my life, but it was amazing. We got to swim on a private beach for a little while and ponder life and how amazing nature is that it forms places like Lago de Atitlan. It really is indescribably beautiful. Now my back is a little sore from riding the horse but I think I´ll be okay. Tonight we are going to chill, maybe meet up with the Irish guys again and go out for a while. So far this trip has been incredible, I´m so excitd about what´s ahead. take care everyone, i love you all! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006
8:50 pm	guatemala, here we come! here i am in an internet cafe in san cristóbal de las casas, chiapas. we had a little trouble figuring out our plans for the next few days this morning, but it all worked out. we ended up packing up all our stuff with the intention to leave for guatemala today, left our hostel, only to return less than 15 minutes later having decided to put off leaving until tomorrow morning so we could arrive in the day time. the hosts laughed at us a little, but it´s fine. the vacation has been awesome so far. we traveled all through the night to palenque, which is the site of some amazing mayan ruins set in the jungle. bobby and i had already been but i wanted to go back anyway and rupert, robert,and steve haven´t ever been to chiapas and we knew it was one of the highlights. we stayed in this "nearly-legendary travelers hangout" (according to Lonely Planet Mexico, my new favorite book) called El Panchán, and it turned out to be awesome. We had one room for the five of us with a private bathroom and it was only $250 pesos a night, which is something like 4.75 a person in US dollars. It was set back in the jungle, no roads around or anything, and filled with some of the most interesting people. i like travelers more who dare to go to places like that, it´s a little off the beaten path but well worth it. we went to the ruins all afternoon and then chilled and watched a huge rainstorm at around 4, 5 pm. Bobby and I had a beer under the Palapa and talked about life. Then we got dinner a little while later and they had live music and fire dancers for entertainment. it was a great day, one of those where you don´t feel you should really be anywhere else at that moment, and you are perfectly content to just sit around and think or listen to the rain fall on the huge leaves of these jungle trees. On Monday we headed to San Cristóbal and arrived a little later then we wanted to but it was okay. It´s funny because me traveling with four guys you´d think that, stereotypically, they´d always be waiting for me to get ready but it´s just the opposite. it takes them forever to get out of the door. i´ve actually taken up the position as leader of the group since none of them really care too much what we do and i´m the one with the Lonely Planet guide. But I think i´m resigning from that position when we get to Guatemala, I prefer to just go along for the ride. The peak feeling like a mother moment was this morning when i gave them all their malaria pills at breakfast. That was really funny, at least in my mind. But they are all great guys, we all get along really well. Today we spent the day on bikes, we rode up this freaking huge hill to get to San Juan Chamula, the pueblo with the church I wrote about earlier. I really thought I was going to die, not only is the air thin here beacuse we are in the mountains, but I had gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before and it was just straight uphill for about 5 km. But we finally got there, when we reached the church it was different from last time because this is semana santa, they were doing some ritual where they had two actual trees inside the church leaned up against the wall and the men were taking turns climbing them. I have no idea what the significance was, I would´ve asked but the thing about San Juan Chamula is they dont like tourists at all. They tolerate them but they don´t like them, so if you ask questions I´m not sure how they would reply. After a few hours we rode back down the mountain, which was an absolute breeze and took like fifteen minutes. Tonight we cooked dinner, rice and beans and guacamole, a very mexican meal gracias to bobby, our cocinero for the night. I laughed my face off watching Rupert try to do the dishes. there was no hot water in the sink and he´s a very proper british guy, tall and skinny as a bean pole and he had some sort of technique going on where he stood like three feet away from the sink with the dish in between two fingers and tried to rinse it without putting his hands in the water. Once the dish was clean (quite a relative term) he´d walk over to the dish drainer and leave a trail of water on the floor betwee the sink and the counter. He´s just so british, i´ll show you all pictures when i get back. But you´ve gotta love him. Tomorrow we head to Lago de Atitlan, which is a ltitle bit away from Antigua in Guatemala. I´m really excited to go, This will the the 2nd country i´ve ever visited and I´ve read so much about it I want to see what it´s really like. The weirdest thing is is that in Overlook Farm we had a house in the Global village like one would be in guatemala, and I used to do peasant meals there and talk about the life of the villagers. But i had no idea i´d actually be going to the country so soon. Life´s funny like that. Well i´m out, this cafe is closing. I´m going to be early tonight because i´m absolutely exhausted, but i´ll try to write again soon. love you all! sus (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 3rd, 2006
11:42 pm	ps ps. i actually went to "ay caray" on friday with carolina and her sister because i wanted to see what it looked like on the inside and it was free to enter and open bar for "las mujeres". so we went in, had a few beers, paid nothing, and left. thats machismo for you, but sometimes it works to my advantage. i mean... i don´t like that there´s such an obvious difference in price (between $0 for women and $10 for guys) but i´m poor sooo you know. it´s tempting. anywho. just wanted to give you an update. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
11:08 pm	pues i´m such a slacker. i came to this pinche internet cafe with the express intencion of doing my homework and here it is already 11:15 and I have done nothing but talk to my friends and look at prices of plane tickets. Oh the flojera that is taking over my life. It´s really quite difficult to be productive when it´s so hot during the day. And also when the reggaeton is blasting your ear drums out. i just can´t concentrate. so i´m supposed to write this summary of all the journals i´ve written for the past three months. impossible? i think so. and it has to be four pages long. and it´s already 11:20 and i haven´t done anything. Mejor I think i´ll write the thing I have to do for Marisol on Wednesday. I get extra credit if it´s in spanish. que padre verdad? so i should write about my servicios that i just started. i´ll try to keep this breve. oh before i start i had a very good spanish moment last night. i was talking to wendy in the kitchen about lots of things (we like to do that when both of us have a lot of homework and neither of us want to do it) and she was describing one of her friends but she couldn´t think of just the right work to describe it, and i rembered a word i had just learned in class, "occurente" which means witty mas o menos, and i said it to her, testing it out, and she was like "si, esta es la palabra perfecta" (yes thats the perfect word) and I did i little victory dance in the kitchen. because the thing about learning a new language is that you can explain yourself, but it´s rarely the most eloquent way at this level and it´s almost never with the perfect words. entonces, because i actually knew that word that wen was looking for, i was very happy. yay spanish! also today gloria told me to put repelente on because there were lots of mosquitos and without even thinking i said "ya lo puse!" which means i already put it on but right after i said it i had to stop and think because usually i have to think about past tense stuff, but this just came out. i was surprised that it was right because i hadn´t figured it out in my head. another small victory for me and my language skills. spanish language skills of sus: 1 - whatever the other side of that battle is: 0 on tuesday i went to emiliano zapata sur II (a colonia by the airport) to check out my placement site and also to go to the fiesta of a boda (wedding) that had taken place earlier that day. when we got there the novios hadn´t arrived yet, but la familia was there and so they fed us some stuff called relleno negro, which as far as i could tell was turkey meat in a black type of sauce, served with tortillas. it was good but they gave me way too much (as usual). the house was super basic, dirt floors, one room with concret walls and the rest made of scraps of metal and such. i didn´t see any beds, just hammocks, and they were cooking on a fire in the back of the house. it´s hard to believe that this kind of stuff exists just 20 minutes south of the city, but it does. soo when the novios finally arrived it was hard to keep my jaw from dropping open. turns out the guy (boy?) is 17 and his new wife is 20. i think she might have been pregnant, i mean i can´t imagine why else they would feel the need to get married so young. but the thing is that in that colonia the prospects for the people don´t extend much past getting married and having kids. going to college is nearly impossible because the families just ´don´t have the money, even moving away from emiliano zapata is hard. arturo (the director of my program) was telling me about a family with a son who got a scholarship to la universidad marista (a private catholic school in the north of the city) but after a few months he got discouraged and decided it would be better for him and his family if he went to the US to look for work. So now he´s there illegally in florida trying to find a job, I talked to his mom and she´s super stressed but praying that everything will be alright. when she heard i had family in florida (aunt pat) she sort of asked me if they would be able to help him out. i had no idea, of course, but it´s sad that he felt he had to give up a college education because his family needed the money. also i think it must have been incredibly difficult to go from living in emiliano zapata sur II which is kind of a shanty town, to taking classes at a catholic university where the majority of the students are wealthy and drive nice cars. i can´t imagine. well i´m outy, i promise i´ll write more but i really have to do my homework and write that thing for marisol. paz (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 26th, 2006
7:34 pm	ay caray thats the name of a bar on calle 60. i´ve never been there but i like the name, it´s sort of a toned down version of "oh shit" pardon my french. for those of you who are now equally disgusted by rice skin, i apologize. but you know what they say, misery loves company. i had another weird dream the other night. you know luis miguel, the super famous singer from mexico? well he´s a huge deal down here, he recently came to mérida and i think the tickets sold out in a few minutes or something. it´s the kind of concert where the rich people get really good seats. or wait, thats every concert, i don´t know what i´m talking about. so the moral of the story is, i had a dream that i came home one night at 5 am with my friend Cindy and we were both kind of drunk (this was a DREAM, mind you) and my entire host family was waiting for me outside the house. Aunts, uncles, grandchildren, sisters, I mean everyone. So there they were, and there I was, ready to just got to sleep so I tried to excuse myself into my bedroom but they told me I couldn´t stay in the house because they were all leaving and some other reason, although it didn´t seem very valid at the time. So then they discussed among themselves and finally decided that the only option was for me to stay in a hotel room with Luis Miguel and his wife (Luis Miguel isn´t married) because all the other hotels would be totally full. Apparently someone in the family was good friends with Luis Miguel, and so this made it okay for them to ask a famous movie star if their American house guest could stay with him and his wife for the night. In my dream I thought it was weird, but I was also pretty excited because I was going to get to meet a famous singer! Unfortunately I woke up before that could happen, but someday... Someday I´ll get my chance. I told my host mom the next morning and she laughed really hard, the idea is pretty ridiculous. Then last night I watched Amores Perros after trying for an hour and half to get a cab to go to Kyu for Carolina´s birthday and failed miserably. And if you´ve ever seen this movie you know that a lot of dogs get injured or die, so then I dreamt that Julie got hurt somehow and she could only walk on three legs and no one would take her to the vet. I was pissed. So just in case I´m psychic and Julie is hurt and no one wants to tell me, please take her to the vet. This weekend was fairly uneventful. The more I don´t have stuff to do the lazier I get. We didn´t have classes all last week even though we are going to have 2 more weeks of vacation in Abril, and so I was kind of a bum. I slept a lot, read a lot, wrote in my journal, went out a few times, I went to COSTCO to buy film which was kind of an adventure. I hate COSTCO and stores like that, so I´m kind of ashamed that I went. But I was feeling quite poor and I figured God would forgive this one hypocritical action. But honestly, what family needs an 18 pack of deoderant? It would take someone years to get through all of that. You have to be a very dedicated shopper to go there. It was also weird because as soon as you step into a store like COSTCO you lose all sense of place. I could have been pretty much anywhere in the United States, except that the baby formula is called "Nido" (nest) and nearly everyone in the store was shorter than me. Last Sunday I went to a work party with Carolina, my friend from the facultad de educacion. Her dad works for Pemex (the only gas station in Mexico, it´s nationwide) and they have an annual party for all the employees. It was at this place called "Jardin Coca Cola" (see the influence this company has in the city? it´s intense man) and when I got there it was a little late and everyone was pretty tipsy. All her cousins gave me many sweaty embraces when I arrived, first because it was supposedly my birthday, then because they hadn´t seen me for chirstmas, or new years, and then i think just because it was sunday. And it was sooo hot out so I was sweating too, but they had been dancing and so it was worse. I really like Carolina´s family, they are super open and friendly and down to earth. Of course I love my host family too, but it´s different because I´m paying to live there and whatnot, and all the daughters are older than me and have their own lives so we aren´t as close. After the work party we went back to Carolina´s house and it was really interesting to see the difference between her house and the one I live in. They aren´t that far away but there is an obvious difference in class. Her family told me that although they don´t have much money (I assured them that I don´t either) what they do have is mine too "lo que tenemos, es tuyo" and i was really touched. I feel like the less people have, the more generous they are. But then they told me that counts for everything except alcohol, haha, chiste! (joke) After that we went to Mambo cafe with CArolina, her brother, brother´s girlfriend, and sister but when we got there it was like 9 pm, seriously too early to enter a dance club, so we went to VIPS, this weird restaurant that looks like denny´s or something. While we were there Carlos introduced us to the waiter because I guess he was a friend of a friend and I introduced my self as "la gringa" which got a laugh out of everyone. I mean, it´s true, and anyway I think half the time thats as far as people get in identifying me. Which is fine, especially in Mérida when you are away from downtown, seeing a white girl is kind of rare. I´ve gotten used to it, but every once and a while I look around and realize what a minority I am. I think it´s a feeling everyone should experience at least once in their lives, because ít´s humbling and it makes you a better person. Especially for white people, because sometimes it´s easy to think that because all you see in the media are white people, in advertisements and whatnot the american or westernized look is so common, that we are the majority. But thats hardly true, and it´s important to experience it. Oh before I go I´ll write about the Equinox because it was relaly cool. On Tuesday morning I woke up at 4 am (after sleeping for three hours) to go see the equinoxial (is that a word?) sun rise at Dzibitchaltun which is a archeological site about half an hour north of Merida. The cool thing about the sunrise this time of year is that there is a building called the house of the seven dolls which the mayans built so that on march 21st (and two days before and after, mas o menos) the sun rises and for about 30 seconds shines directly through the door of the building and lights up everything inside. we just barely made it, there were a ton of people there and we got there a bit late so we were running down the path to the ruins. luckily i had my handy dandy credenciales for the universidad so i didn´t have to pay or wait in line. it was really beautiful, there were a lot of people wearing white (so as to recieve the energy from the sun) and people meditating, most just watching, but some doing interesting ceremonies. I didn´t see them until after the sun rose but there was a group of gringos standing in a circle around insense and these clear glass skulls and they were saying something, not exactly sure what. the funny part was that they were dressed in mayan garments and none of them were mayan. there were a few asians too, and some of them had scarves tied around their foreheads. they looked like your standard hippies, and surrounding them was a group of curious mexicans (and us) who were wondering what they heck they were doing. I still don´t know, but I think it had something to do with the power of the equinoxial sun (again, think i made up that word, but there´s one like it in spanish) We took a lot of pictures and then nos fuimos because kate and i were going to go to Chichén that day too so see Kukulcan (the serpent god) descending the piramide at about 2:30. It´s really hard to explain the phenomenon, so instead if you want to know you should go to this website http://www.piramideinn.com/equinox.htm and it will help you. basically the mayans build it so that the shadow and light would form isoscoles triangles on the side of one of the staircases and it looks like a serpent climbing down the building. simple right? anyway it´s a huge deal, i think there were 30,000 people there. We ended up running into Ken (Mormon friend from Utah) and his friends from the facultad de negocios and so we hung out with them for the rest of they day they were really nice. They gave us a ride back to Mérida and when we got back we went swimming in one of their pools. It was a really fun day, and I think i did recieve energy fromt he sun because I wasn´t tired until 12 am that night and I had been up for 22 hours o algo así. Those Mayans knew what they were doing. I´m outtie, I´ve gotta go get Carolina because it was her birthday and I want to take her out for cena. Paz para todos. love you all! sus (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
2:01 pm	piel de arroz Ahhh un descanso. Finally, alter all that craziness of finals and whatnot. I mean I really can´t complain, it wasn’t that bad in comparison because what I had last quarter was wayyyy worse. But I´m still glad to be done. The past week has been pretty eventful, I’m meeting more and more people every day and it´s really been fun hanging out, practicing my Spanish, feeling every day more comfortable with my speaking abilities. I can understand almost everything. Well, that’s probably an exaggeration, but I don´t have a lot of trouble understand people, and it´s soooo much better than when I started. My English however, is suffering. My friend Ken from Utah (he´s a mormon!) and I were talking yesterday about how our English “gramatics” are getting pretty bad. And I think five minutes later I said “dissupporting.” Equis, is what I say to that. I´ll probably remember it all when I get back to the states, I´m not too worried. Except the one time I couldn´t remember the word for girl, that was kind of problematic. So I was wandering around el centro the other day when I remembered something funny about this trip that I hadn´t written about but wanted to, and I made a mental note instead of writing down what it was. And this afternoon, when I was trying to remember what it was, it took my like a half an hour. Note to self: use your hand and write stuff on it otherwise you will not remember and you will waste precious sleeping time racking your brain for the answer. Speaking of which, I think I should stop giving my number out to guys I don´t know very well, because then when they send me text messages that say “¿te acuerdas de mi? (translation: remember me?) I can say yes, instead of having to ask all of my other friends if they remember who Jorge is, and where I met him. It happened to me twice in the past three days. On Monday morning I got a message from Jorge, which said (in translation) “hey susanna, remember me? It´s Jorge. You´re very pretty and I´ve been thinking about you a lot lately. When are we going to go out?” Unfortunately for Jorge, I had no idea who he was. Or rather, I knew I knew a Jorge, but I didn´t remember how, or when, or which Jorge he was because every guy here has the same name. And then 12 hours later, when I remembered that Jorge goes to my university here and that he’s a friend of Claudia, I also remembered that I didn’t want to go out with him and that things would be better if I just pretended I didn’t have any credits in my phone. Which was mostly true, because I ran out later that day when I sang happy birthday to Joanna on the phone. Maybe sounds mean, but you have to be careful with the guys here, sometimes they take things the wrong way. Then, yesterday I got a message from Fernando (even more common then Jorge here in Mexico) that said something along the same lines. Even more unfortunately for Fernando, I still don’t remember who he is or where I met him. And I really don´t have any credits in my phone so I can’t even figure it out. I hope I have one of my wake up in the middle of the night and remember revelations, that would be convenient because this is kind of driving me crazy. Fernando, who are you?? And that funny thing that I was going to write about? I remembered it, suh-weeet! Entonces, here goes. When we were in San Cristobal Chiapas, we decided one night that we didn´t want to go out because it was cold so we got some beer and headed back to Bobby´s room to play a game or something. We didn´t have cards, or any games, so we made up a game that basically consisted of asking each other really weird questions that we made up. Something like “would you rather lose an arm or a leg?” or my personal favorite “chingate” (that wasn´t actually a question, I think someone ran out of ideas…) They were far more strange than that first example, but I can´t think of any right now that aren´t pretty gross. What can I say, we´re weird and it was late and San Cristobal is sort of conducive to this kind of behavior. So one of my questions that I pulled out of the hat was “would you rather have skin of slime or skin of rice?” seemingly innocent (albeit very weird) question, but for some reason the visual image of skin of rice completely grosses me out. I mean it, and I’m not exaggerating. I really can’t think of anything grosser than rice skin, and we played this game almost two months ago. That’s how bad it is, I have some sort of rice skin phobia. I wonder if there’s a name for that? So we talked about it for a while, I of course opted for skin of slim, so what if stuff gets stuck to me? At least birds won’t eat my skin and I won’t be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Skin of rice…. It makes me shudder. The most ironic thing about the rice skin is that the next day we were driving to Palenque and on the side of almost every building we saw was an exposed wall, and here a lot of the walls are made of big rocks cemented together with little rocks in between, and the freaking little rocks look like what I imagine rice skin would be. What are they odds that I would discover something that seriously grossed me out (because not a lot of things do, snakes, spiders, bugs, whatev) and at the same time live in a city where everything is made of the stuff? Everywhere I turn I see these walls made of little rocks close together and it took me about two weeks to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t avoid them. I’m better now, I can look at the rice skin walls without shuddering, but I still don’t like them. I swear they are everywhere. I have never seen something like this in the states, they just don’t build like that, but of course here I am, surrounding by rice skin. Probably some of you have no idea what I’m referring to, but that’s okay. It’s better if you don’t have to see it. The walls, that is. They actually have nothing to do with rice, only that the little rocks look like big grains of rice, and that they are all close together. Now that you all think I’ve probably lost it in Mexico and drank some bad water or something… I thought it was sort of a funny story, because who is afraid of rice skin? And who knew that a figment of Kate’s imagination would turn into something so concrete? Haha no pun intended. That’s all I have to say about the rice skin. But it’s kind of a big part of my life here so I wanted to share it with you. And no I haven’t gotten much sleep in the past few days, why do you ask? Another weird thing that happened was that I had a dream that I wanted to wash my gold shoes because they smell atrocious (but I love them!) so I decided to wash them but for some reason I used chocolate milk and soap. I don’t know if it worked very well, but I can’t imagine that it did. Why do I dream such weird things? Maybe it´s the food here. Well, I’m about to piece out. Peace out? I never did quite know. Take care all, more later. Next time I’ll write about the Equinox at Chichén Itzá and Dzibitchaltun and how I received energy from the sun yesterday and normal things like that. I love you all! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 19th, 2006
2:48 pm	la verdad es que no sé hola a todos. i´m sorry i haven´t written in a while, things were busy with finals and because half the group left yesterday and friday so we´ve been saying goodbye for a few days. it was sad to say goodbye of course, i´ll miss the ones who left a lot, but I´m excited to get started with my community service work and to be a bit more independent. I had to say goodbye to Steph and Yadira when we were in Mambo café, it was like 2 am and I had had a few beers, so it was quite a tearful goodbye. The people around us were probably wondering what the problem was, but thats what I do, I cry. Anywho, Cindy is still in Mexico, Kate is still in Mérida, and I´ll see Yadira at Chichén Itzá (hopefully) on Tuesday. It will be fun when we go back to Chicago and we can hang out, although it will be sort of out of context since we became friends in Mexico. Bueno, pues, what have I been up to lately? Well, I finished my paper about Mayan women, gracias a Dios. It wasn´t that I wasn{t interested in the topic, more that I had very little time to do a good job. I wnated to interview a bunch of Mayan Women, visit the government department that does development for Mayan culture in Yucatán, cosas como asi. But instead I spent a weekend in the library, interviewed three women, y ya. That was the best I could do with my time. But I learned some interesting things. It´s amazing the difference between the life of a mestizo here and the life of a mayan. Of course I can´t generalize, but it´s crazy to be in a city where you can walk down the steet and within 30 seconds you can see a Burger King, a regular Mexican family, and a Mayan woman in a hipil selling frutas con chile. I swear I had no idea of the diversity here. But it{s not diversity in the the US sense, more diversity of well... i can{t explain ti because i don{t have time,i have to run to an interview. nos vemos! sus (2 Comments |Comment on this)