Leaving Minas
Today is our last full day in San Jose de Minas so I´d like to use this blog post to reflect on my few weeks here.
Uncle Greg, this is for you.
We begin every day by waking up around 6. Then I turn the alarm off and sleep in for 10 more minutes (can you blame me?)
Madison and I live at the top of the hill in a green two-story house with orange lining (I would include pictures, but am writing this in an internet cafe). Our room is on the bottom floor. It opens up into a kitchen but it´s not the main kitchen we use.
We head upstairs for breakfast. The whole family is there. Paula and Luz Clarita are scrambling to get ready for school and eat breakfast not to mention take care of the baby. Zoila prepares something similar for us every day. We begin with tea, then eat either eggs, bread, or eggs and bread, and we finish it off with a fruit juice. Next, we´re off to school.
As explained in my other blogpost it´s about a 20 minute walk from our house on the hill to school. Also you should know that every day we´re always a little bit late so we end up sprinting down the steep parts.
There are six of us working in El Colegio Municipal with English teacher Gladys so we work in shifts. I take the morning. I work from 7-10 and then sit in the park and read from 10-1. The city council recently put a playground in the park so I have spent some time sitting on the swings.
Luz Clarita is in 6th grade, she gets let out at 12:10. Paula is a sophomore/junior (they only have three years of high school, remember), she gets let out at 12:50. Together we walk back home for lunch. Lunch is predicatble: vegetable soup with tons of potatoes, rice with more potatoes, beans, fried plantains, and avocadoes from their tree.
We eat as fast as we can. The lunch is usually prepared around 1:30 and we have to be in town for our next engagement at 2. We either have spanish class or seminar. Seminar involves readings and discussions (or rather heated debates) about edcuation (though in Guatemala it will be about agriculture).
After we finish around 5, we might hang around for a while longer and play a round of UpJumpkins, Frisbee, or soccer or head to a convience store for water or Oreos or hang in the park and sing to Gabi´s guitar or go to an Internet Cafe or even head home.
At home we work on the farm. We feed the guinea pigs, regular pigs, chickens, and duck. We change their water and in the case of fowl, collect their eggs. Sometimes we climb the avacodo trees to pick ripe ones.
Funny story: I have allergies to most things in nature. It mostly results in watery eyes and a sneezy nose, but sometimes direct contact can give me a bit of a rash. The sisters and Madison were up in the trees and they kept pressuring me to climb too. My original reason for climbing was that I thought it was too much weight on the branches and that they would snap, but after returning to the ground I found my skin was now red and blotchy all over.
It´s funnier when the sisters tell it.
Sometimes on weekends together the four of us will play soccer or hide-and-go-seek tag. Sometimes at night after we´re done helping them with homework we´ll play games on paper like Tic-Tac-Toe, a type of pen soccer (Yeah it doesn´t make sense when I say it but it´s super fun and I can´t wait to play at home), or even dance!
Next we´ll spend the rest of the time until dinner making something for the market on Sunday, whether it´s husking corn and making masa for humitas, packing corn nuts into bags for tostados, pushing guava through a strainer for meregine, or last night rolling out dough for empanadas.
Dinner is typically lunch leftovers and we end with either tea or homemade hot chocolate. I always help wash the dishes.We say good night and head to bed.
That´s a typical weekday. But to answer the rest of your questions:
Are you able to communicate with people?
-Yes, my Spanish has improved a ton. Sometimes they speak a little too fast though.
Are they friendly?
-Yes, I haven´t met a single person who isn´t generous and willing to open their arms and homes to us. Something interesting about small town life as opposed to the big city is that you say "Buenos dias" and "Buenas tardes" to everyone you see.
Are they artistic?
-Yes and no. I haven´t seen anyone being actively artistic though I do pass wall paintings and graffiti everywhere I go (and yes, I consider graffiti art). There´s one wall on our way to the Seminar house that reads "Nosotros no somos amigos. Somos familia." Translation: "We aren´t friends. We´re family." We´re all in groups for a final media project, there´s one group looking at art and artists in Latin American culture. My group is looking at ideas of beauty and westernization/influence.
Have you bought any little momentos?
-Not yet. I have to carry all my luggage on my back up Machu Piccu, through three more countries, and a million airports. I won´t be buying things until Guatemala where we´re working with women weavers.
What is the weather like?
-It depends on the day. Sometimes it rains buckets, sometimes there´s a lighting and thunder storm, sometimes it´s too hot outside to stand it, sometimes I´m postivie we´re going to be blown away by the wind. Two days in a row we saw a double rainbow outside our house! I have pictures but then again I am writing this on an Internet cafe computer.
We have a Farewell Dinner tonight with all the families and we leave tomorrow morning. Then we´re off to Peru and Machu Piccu! Wish me luck on our four day hike.
Please feel free to ask more questions in the comments below and I´ll try to answer them in a future blogpost. Or if you want to speak to me directly feel free to send me an FB message.
Uncle Greg, this is for you.
We begin every day by waking up around 6. Then I turn the alarm off and sleep in for 10 more minutes (can you blame me?)
Madison and I live at the top of the hill in a green two-story house with orange lining (I would include pictures, but am writing this in an internet cafe). Our room is on the bottom floor. It opens up into a kitchen but it´s not the main kitchen we use.
We head upstairs for breakfast. The whole family is there. Paula and Luz Clarita are scrambling to get ready for school and eat breakfast not to mention take care of the baby. Zoila prepares something similar for us every day. We begin with tea, then eat either eggs, bread, or eggs and bread, and we finish it off with a fruit juice. Next, we´re off to school.
As explained in my other blogpost it´s about a 20 minute walk from our house on the hill to school. Also you should know that every day we´re always a little bit late so we end up sprinting down the steep parts.
There are six of us working in El Colegio Municipal with English teacher Gladys so we work in shifts. I take the morning. I work from 7-10 and then sit in the park and read from 10-1. The city council recently put a playground in the park so I have spent some time sitting on the swings.
Luz Clarita is in 6th grade, she gets let out at 12:10. Paula is a sophomore/junior (they only have three years of high school, remember), she gets let out at 12:50. Together we walk back home for lunch. Lunch is predicatble: vegetable soup with tons of potatoes, rice with more potatoes, beans, fried plantains, and avocadoes from their tree.
We eat as fast as we can. The lunch is usually prepared around 1:30 and we have to be in town for our next engagement at 2. We either have spanish class or seminar. Seminar involves readings and discussions (or rather heated debates) about edcuation (though in Guatemala it will be about agriculture).
After we finish around 5, we might hang around for a while longer and play a round of UpJumpkins, Frisbee, or soccer or head to a convience store for water or Oreos or hang in the park and sing to Gabi´s guitar or go to an Internet Cafe or even head home.
At home we work on the farm. We feed the guinea pigs, regular pigs, chickens, and duck. We change their water and in the case of fowl, collect their eggs. Sometimes we climb the avacodo trees to pick ripe ones.
Funny story: I have allergies to most things in nature. It mostly results in watery eyes and a sneezy nose, but sometimes direct contact can give me a bit of a rash. The sisters and Madison were up in the trees and they kept pressuring me to climb too. My original reason for climbing was that I thought it was too much weight on the branches and that they would snap, but after returning to the ground I found my skin was now red and blotchy all over.
It´s funnier when the sisters tell it.
Sometimes on weekends together the four of us will play soccer or hide-and-go-seek tag. Sometimes at night after we´re done helping them with homework we´ll play games on paper like Tic-Tac-Toe, a type of pen soccer (Yeah it doesn´t make sense when I say it but it´s super fun and I can´t wait to play at home), or even dance!
Next we´ll spend the rest of the time until dinner making something for the market on Sunday, whether it´s husking corn and making masa for humitas, packing corn nuts into bags for tostados, pushing guava through a strainer for meregine, or last night rolling out dough for empanadas.
Dinner is typically lunch leftovers and we end with either tea or homemade hot chocolate. I always help wash the dishes.We say good night and head to bed.
That´s a typical weekday. But to answer the rest of your questions:
Are you able to communicate with people?
-Yes, my Spanish has improved a ton. Sometimes they speak a little too fast though.
Are they friendly?
-Yes, I haven´t met a single person who isn´t generous and willing to open their arms and homes to us. Something interesting about small town life as opposed to the big city is that you say "Buenos dias" and "Buenas tardes" to everyone you see.
Are they artistic?
-Yes and no. I haven´t seen anyone being actively artistic though I do pass wall paintings and graffiti everywhere I go (and yes, I consider graffiti art). There´s one wall on our way to the Seminar house that reads "Nosotros no somos amigos. Somos familia." Translation: "We aren´t friends. We´re family." We´re all in groups for a final media project, there´s one group looking at art and artists in Latin American culture. My group is looking at ideas of beauty and westernization/influence.
Have you bought any little momentos?
-Not yet. I have to carry all my luggage on my back up Machu Piccu, through three more countries, and a million airports. I won´t be buying things until Guatemala where we´re working with women weavers.
What is the weather like?
-It depends on the day. Sometimes it rains buckets, sometimes there´s a lighting and thunder storm, sometimes it´s too hot outside to stand it, sometimes I´m postivie we´re going to be blown away by the wind. Two days in a row we saw a double rainbow outside our house! I have pictures but then again I am writing this on an Internet cafe computer.
We have a Farewell Dinner tonight with all the families and we leave tomorrow morning. Then we´re off to Peru and Machu Piccu! Wish me luck on our four day hike.
Please feel free to ask more questions in the comments below and I´ll try to answer them in a future blogpost. Or if you want to speak to me directly feel free to send me an FB message.
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