Honestly? It's kind of been a boring week.

I'm sorry. I have very little in the way of adventures to write about today. The only thing I did other than go to class this week was go kayaking to San Marcos on Saturday morning, and that was pretty uneventful. I feel like I just talked about it in great detail, really, just telling you that there was a kayak and some water involved. I'm sunburned, despite my sunscreen.

What I do have to share, however, is some fantastically good news. I got my work placement for Cuernavaca! YAYYYYYYYYYYYY! I'll be working at La Estación Kinder and Community Center as well as Casa Tatic. Five mornings a week I'll be at La Estación, starting with the breakfast program at the Community Center. Three mornings a week, I'll work in the Kinder program, most likely teaching English in all the classes, but possibly also working on reading skills one-on-one. The other two mornings I'll remain in the Community Center with the mothers who work to keep the center running. The work in this part will vary greatly.

Each week I'll eat my lunches with a family involved in the La Estación programs. I'm especially excited about this part, since it will really provide me with time to get to know the people of the neighborhood. Two afternoons a week I will return to La Estactión and offer workshops. I have a lot of flexibility as far as this is concerned, including having the option to offer them myself or find presenters to come in to the center. During this time I might be working with kids or adults.

The remaining three afternoons each week will be at Casa Tatic. The details here are also fairly open, but Casa Tatic has a special focus on teaching computer skills to the children that are involved in their programs. I could also be working one-on-one reading skills here, or as a teaching assistant. One day a week I should be able to work with the mothers, who are provided with time and space to practice handicrafts they can sell to support their families.

Welp, that's pretty much all I've got. Hope you're having a great week.

Hey, if I'm gonna puke, which way do you think I should aim?

This past weekend, I went on my first excursion with the language school. Kanopy. AKA Ziplines. It was... interesting.

I've seen pictures and heard stories about some of my friends doing this before when they visited places with really intense mountains and/or rainforests. It was one of those things that always kind of terrified me, but I also kind of always wanted to do--or at least be able to say that I had done. 150Q seemed like an entirely reasonable price for putting my life in danger, so I decided, what the heck. There's no time like the present.

We left the school Saturday morning at 7am. While I am usually up by 6:30am here (San Pedro, while it seems to be a sleepy little town, does not have much respect for people who actually sleep during the night), 7am is much earlier than I ever have to be anywhere. I was not super psyched about this part. But I made it, and my fellow students and I stood around comparing sleepiness for a little while before Mynor told us it was time to go get in the car.

Perhaps I should take a moment to talk about transportation in San Pedro. Cars and drivers licenses are very expensive here. Most Guatemaltecas I've talked to have never driven a car, and don't even really like riding in cars. Therefore, the people who do have/can drive cars are in a great position of power. Most people in San Pedro walk most of the places they need to go. If they happen to have a lot of stuff to carry or they're in a very big hurry, they have two options. The most commonly used is the tuk-tuk I wrote about in my last post. If you can imagine that a moped and a go-cart had a baby, you might have a good idea of what these look like: one front wheel, centrally positioned driver, cramped backseat with a low ceiling, and generally covered in whatever stickers and decals the driver/owner could get his hands on. The second, less common but more durable option is the pick-up. It's a very complicated Spanish word that roughly translates to pick-up in English. That's right. Pick-up trucks with a metal frame around the bed and flashing blue lights cruise around and take people in between towns, up and down the mountain, to the campo, etc. It was this second option that was our "car" to the zipline.

So all 11 of us pile in to the bed of this pick-up and hang on for dear life since we immediately start driving up one of the biggest hills in San Pedro. We rode up the mountain in the back of this thing for about an hour and a half, excepting the 15 minutes when we had to get out and walk up an especially steep hill because there were too many of us for the truck (which seemed to be surprisingly low on horsepower considering its vocation) to handle carrying. By the time we got to the zipline, I was feeling pretty ill.

We get out, admire the view of the lake for a little bit--which, I must confess, was really incredible--and then head up to the office. We get on our gear and start hiking. It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the first line. Essentially, they hook you up to this wheeling contraption that glides over a cable and you step off the face of the rock. The first line was really awesome. My feet almost touched the tops of the trees the whole way across, and I felt like I was flying... for about 25 seconds. After a terrifying stop by a guy with tire rubber wrapped around the cable, I laughed like a maniac for about three whole minutes. Luckily, everyone seemed to have the same reaction.

Another hike, since the second line is higher up, takes about 25 minutes (at least for me, because 3,000meters is really high elevation for an east coast girl who's badly out of shape). I'm severly nervous about this next line, because I can tell just by the hill we walked up that we have to be much much further from the other end of the cable. I elect to be the last to go. I get hooked up and I think the operator had to tell me three times to step down onto the platform before I actually did it because I was thinking don'tletmediedon'tletmediedon'tletmedie so loudly in my own head that I didn't know he was talking to me. The second line, I am told, takes just under a minute to cross. It seemed like much longer. The platform is well in the trees, although you can see that the trees eventually drop off, but when you reach the .7second point and the trees around you actually do suddenly go away, it's quite unexpected. For the next 55 seconds, there is nothing between you and the tree tops but hundreds and hundreds of feet of air. I will confess that it was really exciting, and a beautiful view. But it was also terrifying.

I'm barely unhooked from the line, and still shaking like a leaf when the guide from the other platform comes zipping across himself, casually breaking and gliding to a stop like it's no big deal at all to fly across a valley. We take an insanely quick group picture. Hike back over to the lodge. Return our gear. Get in the truck. Head back down.

If I thought I was feeling ill on the way up the mountain, I was mistaken. Maybe I had waited too long before eating the breakfast my host mom so kindly packed for me. Maybe the adrenaline did gross things to my stomach. Maybe standing in the back of a pickup truck flying down a mountain in neutral is a dangerous and barf-producing way to travel. But I barely made it back to San Pedro without losing it all over myself and my friends in the back of a pickup truck. I went back to bed.

well... that was exciting...

I haven't talked to my parents about this yet. Hopefully they won't be too mad to read it before they hear my voice and know I'm okay. I AM OKAY. I tried to call you guys, but you didn't pick up. Totally not my fault.

I got sick.

I'm not sure how.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon walking around with Teagan and Oli, enjoying the nice weather that had been avoiding us for so long. We ate out lunch, but it was a restaurant I had been to before, and I ate all the same things as before. Saturday night I had planned to meet Teags and Oli, as well as some friends from the language school at the pub.

I noticed that I was a little itchy when I lay down for a nap, but there are a lot of bugs around, so I didn't think about it. After about five minutes, I couldn't sit still anymore. I itched. Everywhere. I had broken out in hives like never ever before. Even my eyelids were swolen and itchy. I figured I got bit by something a little more irritating, ditched my plan to go out, took a benadryl and went to bed. Around 1am, I woke up, itchy again, and unable to use my hands. They were so swolen I couldn't touch any of my fingers to my thumb. I could feel that my eyes were more swolen than before, as well, and my lips felt like they were going to pop right open. Somehow I managed to take another benadryl and went back to sleep.

When I get up in the morning (around 8am), the swelling had spread to my feet as well. I freakout, but luckily Dan, the guy who was living in the room next to mine, comes over to say hey. He gets Doña Rosa for me. She asks me what I ate or did the day before to cause this and I tell her I didn't know. I think she is just going to shrug and walk away, because Sunday is the day they're all supposed to have off, both in the school and in the host families. Dan tries to tell me that everybody gets sick when they travel and this isn't a big deal. He says he'll go get breakfast if I want, or go with to the doctor. After a while, Doña Rosa comes back to my room and says she couldn't get anyone from the school on the phone, but to get ready to go to the doctor. She, Dan, & I pile in a tuk-tuk, the tiny tricycle-style taxis that zip around the city. The doctor at the health department confirms that I am having an alergic reaction, and not, as I feared, a recurrence of rheumatic fever, but since we don't know the cause she would just get me a shot to take care of everything, and hopefully it won't happen again. At least the visit is free.

So, Doña Rosa, Dan, & I pile back into a tuk-tuk and go to the pharmacia, where a guy not wearing gloves tries to give me a shot from across the counter until Doña Rosa insists that I be allowed to sit down. Back in the tuk-tuk again, and I go straight to bed as soon as we get home. After about an hour, Doña Rosa comes to my door with soup (even though she isn't supposed to cook for me on Sunday) saying I need to get better. When I wake up four hours later, I don't itch anymore, but my hands and feet are still swolen. I'm sick of being in bed. I spend less than an hour sitting on my front stoop, in which time pretty much every member of Doña Rosa's family comes by to check on me. They all ask if I went swimming, or drank water from the tap, or bought drugs in the street. I think this illness has solidified my position in the family.

A few more hours pass, and Dan takes me back up to the pharmacia for the second shot, even though he moved out of the house and has no obligation to help me. He translates, haggles a cheaper price for the tuk-tuk we decide to take because of the rain, confirms for the millionth time that the needle, at least, is a new and clean one, gets me a receipt for the sketchiest medical care I've ever received, jokes with the pharmacist, and is just generally the nicest person I think I've ever met. I thank him, but not enough times.

This morning, the visible swelling is gone, but I can still feel the stiffness when I try to make a fist or walk. I thank Doña Rosa again (and again not enough) for going to the doctor with me, and for the soup. She asks (for the fifth time) if I ate all the soup. She says, gesturing between herself and Domingo, that while I am living here, they are my parents, and most important to her is that her children are healthy and happy. She asks if I want more coffee.

First week in San Pedro la Laguna

I made it to Guatemala! I had a little bit of a hassle with delayed and cancelled flights, but I arrived in San Pedro la Laguna in one piece, if a little tired.

I am taking 6 hours of Spanish courses a day. My teacher uses a very conversational style of instruction, which I really like because it gives me a lot of practice. Vocabulary is coming slowly, but my grammar has improved vastly already. I look forward to the next five weeks. The grounds of the school are absolutely incredible. We have a great view of the lake from the office area, and instruction takes place in little thatch roofed huts in the garden. I'm surrounded by flowers and cacti and coffee trees.

I'm living with a family in San Pedro. Rosa is the mother, who spends all day cooking and cleaning and generally caring for us and her children. She and Domingo have three sons living at home, ranging in age from 16 to 22. Their two daughters don't live at home right now. One is studying nursing in Xela, and the other lives in San Pedro with her husband and 1 year old daughter. My room opens up on to the garden, which is full of avocado trees; we eat fresh guacamole almost every day. Beyond the street in front is an awesome view of the mountains to the east. When I walk out into the street, the hill slopes down to the lake. It's beautiful. I'm in heaven. That is, I would be if it would stop raining. The mornings are usually somewhat cloudy--sunny but cold if we're lucky--but in the afternoons it rains without exception.

I would love to write a more in-depth entry today, but I don't have the time. Teagan, one of my roommates from Border Servant Corps, is in town, and I have lunch plans with her and her boyfriend. Maybe I will make it back down tomorrow, but if not, until next week know that I am safe and having fun and learning MUCHO!