A little past due...

This post was written Saturday, May 7, 2011.

This has been an interesting first week in my community! I don’t know where to begin… 

Today has been a sad day because the host father of one of my group members passed at 5 this morning. It has been a very interesting day for us because we were able to observe the traditions of this pueblo. Having just attended a funeral a few months ago, I’m in a position to make a number of comparisons.

First observation: Don Albuerto died in his home, so his funeral is being held in his home. Of course, you know in the States when a person dies, the ambulance takes the body away, its inspected, and prepared for the funeral. Well, most of this was done in less than a day and in his house.  The room that he died in became his funeral room, or where people are allowed to view the body. He died around 5 am and I looked at his body (in a casket or caja with a suit on) at 10:30 am… and apparently, he was ready before 8 am because a few people from my group saw him then. Now that is a very fast turnaround. In those couple of hours they cleaned up his body and emptied out his room. When I went in there, there was his casket, candles lit, beautiful fresh flowers, and basket for money collection.  I was very impressed! When my maestro or teacher asked me if I wanted to see the body at first I said no. I’m not big on stuff like that. However, once I learned that this was the actual funeral… I was like oh, well sure I’ll see him. And, of course one of the main reasons I’m here is to open my mind and experience another culture. I’m very glad I went. I envisioned that he was just lying in the bed he died in…so I’m glad I was able to see the progress they made in only a few hours.

Second observation: They have another tradition that people from the community shows support by coming to the person’s house and just sitting there. We sat for about a half hour. Because so many people are coming to show their support, they must prepare a lot of food. There were about mas o menos15 women preparing food. Luckily, I was there to see when a lot of the food arrived. There were hugehuge bags of beans to be prepared, cases of tomatoes, onions, I mean I can’t even describe the amount of food that I saw… and mind you, they had to prepare and cook this food. I was told that the women were from their church and that the wife wouldn’t be helping in the preparation. Although I did see her running around getting a few things here and there.  It was very interesting. My host mom prepared my lunch and then went over there to help with the food preparation. 

The cemetery part is tomorrow, so I will finish the story after I experience that. 

Wow, although my week ended on a somber note, it has definitely been very lively and exciting. I commented on my first chicken bus experience in my last post. However, that is still very heavily in my mind. I don’t know how I’m going to do that for 2 years. Luckily it’s only once a week right now. I’m sure I’ll get used to it. It’s a very interesting experience. When you all come visit me…we will definitely ride a chicken bus!!! Lol

My Spanish is improving, poca a poca… I have to realize that it’s only been a week. I get so discouraged when people are talking to me and I’m looking at them like they are characters in a cartoon, of which I can’t understand most of what they are saying. However, I’m fortunate that all of my host family works with me. They talk slow, repeat and explain when necessary. I’m very blessed to be with them. I realized how blessed I am after yesterday. We had appointments with the Mayor of Santa CatarinaBorhona and the Puesta de Salud (Health Post) that we will be working with for the next 3 months. The Mayor and the nurse spoke very fast. It was very discouraging. Of course I smiled and nodded but I was thinking, I have NO idea what you are saying!! We each had to prepare questions to ask them. My question was “How can we help the municipality’s health efforts?” The mayor completely ignored my question and said something else he wanted to say... (However, I didn’t find this out until after the meeting when I asked my teacher what he said!) LOL, I’m sure by my smiling, nodding and jotting down random words that he was also thinking that I knew not what he was saying. Too funny! 

Well, I guess I’ll wrap up for now and give you my Best and Worst for this post:

Best: I’m not sure if this is a Best or Worst, but I’m putting it here because it’s so funny… So absolutely NO ONE in Guatemala (minus the people that flew in with me) can pronounce my name… Is it really that difficult? Shanteace, Shantweece, Shauntice, I’ve heard it all. I’m like, call me whatever, as long as it somewhat sounds like my name, I’ll answer. So the converstion goes like this: “Buenas Dias, Me llamoShantrice” They look at me with a puzzled face… “Oh, esmuyDificil!” I respond… “Si, mi nombre is muydificil, peroEstabien”… as they are practicing how to say my name. After we arrived in our community, we went around to meet everyone’s host family (there are 3 other people in my group) and I had the same conversation with all of the host families. I learned in class the other day that at night, over dinner, the families practice my name with my group members. They told me how they laugh that that is always a topic of discussion. It is even a topic at my house…almost every night, when they get ready to leave the table, a custom is to say Gracious to every person and they stumble when they get to my name. It’s so funny. However, the Best part is the 2 year little girl that lives with me. She has to be the most intelligent 2 year old I’ve ever met. But I’ll save that for another post. She calls me Shaany… and it’ssooo cute! So I’ll here Shaany outside of my room when she wants me to come out and play. Lol..she’s a very demanding person…already!

Worst: So my worst this post almost beats the chicken buses. I was so embarrassed and intimidated, I didn’t know what to do. So of course you know the food situation was the one thing I was worried about. However, it has been absolutely fabulous. I’ve had some great food more or less. And the not so great food I’ve “loved” because it’s not meat… “Oh mucho gusta” I say at every meal. Letting my host mom know that I loved it and thanking her for preparing it for me.It’s important for me to feel like it’s not a burden for her to prepare non-meat items for me and I want her to know I appreciate it. So, even when I’m given something that I don’t “care” for, I still love it. However, yesterday…I reached my limit! And, the worst part was that my Teacher was joining us for lunch at the time. I was thinking Oh crap…when she was walking towards me with a plate full of beets and onions. Now there is pretty much nothing I won’t eat, but, Beets…oh there is something about it that just won’t let me digest it without getting Nauseas. So…I’m like, how am I going to tell this lady that I don’t like Beets without being offensive. My first response was to try it. I’m thinking, well a lot of fruits and vegetables have tasted differently here, or at least I’ve tricked my mind to think so so that I can eat it (i.e. Bananas with lots of black spots, I prefer them green, but here…I love all kinds of bananas, lol). So, I take a small one, and put it in my mouth … and Yep, it tastes just like it does in the States…I force myself to swallow and follow it with a Tortilla. I go back to thinking, how am I going to tell her this. I think it would have been fine had it just been us two. But my teacher was sitting next to me, obviously enjoying her plate of beets! Lol It ended up not being as bad as it felt at the time.  I ate my other food, which was green beans prepared in an egg batter (kinda like egg fujung (sp?)) and salsa, It was SO good, especially after eating a piece of beets. My teacher looked over at me while eating her beets to tell me the name of it in Spanish…and there was my opening.. I responded with a disappointed face, “No me gusta.” She told my host mom and she responded with Esta Bien and that she won’t prepare it again (she said this in a very loving voice). I’m so glad that ended well…although it didn’t begin well. Lol I’m glad I didn’t force myself to eat it, given that I’m trying to acculturate and be as less of a burden as possible. Telling her that I didn’t like it saved me from throwing up all over the table and saved me from future possible run ins with beets…lol

Ok, well that’s enough for now… I’m going to get back to studying…

Love and miss you all lots,

Shantrice

P.s. Don’t forget how to say my name in the next 2 years please… Lol