Gracefully Clumsy

First of all, sorry for not posting for these last few weeks. We've been really busy. Here's what's happened: -worked on an avocado farm digging holes and picked coffee beans on a coffee farm -went cliff jumping in San Marcos -had an incredible potluck Thanksgiving (Gracefully Clumsy vlog post coming soon...) -contracted bacteria from water/food, I was 15th of 17, went to a clinic in Antigua -went gift shopping in the market! -finished the Harry Potter series (still v shook over a certain character's death) -finished our media project, a video titled "Why Is Blonde Beautiful?" I'm working on getting the file to put on YouTube -landed back in DC For the past week I've been hanging out in DC meeting with Development and Aid organizations such as PeaceCorps, World Bank, the UN, and the NRDC, not to mention had seminars about how to actually affect change. We went to Smithsonians, went on a monument tour, and met up with friends in the area (...

Heigh, ho! Heigh, ho! It's off to work we g o!  *whistling noises * We look like the 14 dwarves. Every day at 8 we're met by a handful of farmers from San Juan. They divide us into groups and we follow them to our various farms all the while carrying shovels, hoes, and pick-axes over our shoulders or machetes in our belt loops. I said in one of my most recent posts that I feel fairly confident in my Spanish skills and I can say that the majority of the TBB group does too. In fact we've all gotten used to speaking in a English-Spanish hybrid where a number of common words in our vernacular are verbs in Spanish with an -ing ending attached. They include, but are not limited to: subiring, bajaring, descansaring, and limpiaring. The verb limpiar in Spanish, for those who don't know, means to clean. For two weeks we have been limpiaring. For the first week I was in a group of four with my friends Sam, Madison, and Charlotte. Every day we walked up a super steep hill fo...

Let's start with books. I love books. Always have. Except that school, first of all, took up all my time so that I never had time to read for fun, and secondly, to be honest drained a little of my love for them. Thinking Beyond Borders is one of the more academic heavy Gap Year programs. I love learning and I love school so I 've  enjoyed our twice-weekly seminars that call for discussions and debates on what constitutes productive education, how policy affects sustainable agriculture and consumption, and of course the question t hat 's been driving our exploration for two months: what is development? However, all this heavy reading about the Mayan Genocide, extreme poverty, banana republics, and government coups at times can be, well, to say the least, difficult and saddening material. I 've found myself with more time on my hands than I ever had in high school. So, with all that time I 've decided to fill it up with what I love: reading. To be perfectly...

I've been taking Spanish for as long as I can remember. Literally. Except for one year in 5th grade when I took Latin I have spent every single year of my life in school, from Pre-K to Senior year, taking Spanish in some sort of academic capacity. To be honest, I hadn't found my Spanish education to be satisfactory and if you're looking at my AP score as the only official way to measure my ability in Spanish, I did fine, but not great. While looking at Gap Year programs the only thing my parents asked of me was that I spend some time in a Spanish speaking country. I saw no harm in this and took it upon myself to in fact come out of this experience speaking and understanding Spanish a million times better than I had before. After two months of living in South/Latin America, living with homestays, working in the communities, taking classes in Spanish, and breathing in the language as a part of my daily life, I can proudly and honestly say that I have achieved this. ...

When we last left off our heroine, Grace, was flying away from Guatemala with her coffee beans in hand never to return. Little did she know fate would bring her back to San Juan la Laguna on her Gap Year adventure. This is... Global Investigator Trip 2: Return To Guatemala Okay, that's a bit dramatic but it's not a bad title for a jam-packed, action-filled sequel. Here's the low down: I came to Guatemala and San Juan la Laguna for my Junior year Global Investigator Trip. For a number of reasons, it was not the best trip and I promised myself that of all the places in the world I would never EVER go back. While looking at Gap Year Programs I specifically avoided all and any trips that went to Guatemala. The original TBB plan looked a little more like this: Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, DC. A little ways into the summer I got an email saying that Bolivia had been switched to Guatemala and more specifically to San Juan la Laguna. So here we are three days in to our month-lon...

Happy Halfway! Wednesday the 25th marked the halfway point for the Thinking Beyond Borders Latin America Fall Gap Semester 2017 group. We didn't have a celebration since we were in the middle of the Salkantay Trek (check out my latest vlog on it here) but we did end up in Machu Piccu. I've also been thinking a lot recently. This marks our 6 week together as a group and 6 weeks, for me at least, marks the longest period of time I've ever been away from home by myself. Sleep away camps in middle school only ever lasted a week, summer programs in high school expanded to 3 or 5 weeks, but 6 weeks is a different entity altogether. I've had the opportunity to Facetime family and friends and yes, I miss them. But I'm having a great time and loving every minute. So... I'll see you in 6 weeks. Hey, it's only halfway :)

Hi, my name is Grace. I want to go vegetarian. I wrote that opening as a joke placeholder a week ago, but it´s not a bad attention grabber, is it? On to the story. Here in Minas we live on a farm. We work on the farm too. A couple weeks ago I woke up and after talking to Paula at breakfast she told me that one of the pigs they keep gave birth to four piglets. That night as we were feeding the pigs I saw the piglets. They were cold and huddled together in a corner of the concrete cage they live in and will probably live in until the day they die. They will never know the feeling of dirt or grass. I went to summer camp on Sprout Creek Farm for three years and I know that the kind way they treat animals is rare for America and that even if I thought a little farm in Ecuador was bad it was definetly worse back home. It started with my roommate Madison. She and her entire family at home are vegan. It´s for ethical reasons (like stated above), but also for ecological and human health...