(Chicken fight at Uspantan's feria)
Last weekend, I went to help out at the bottle school in Uspantan that I mentioned in my last blog. The project was amazing. The building is solid, yet with a frame of plastic bottles filled with trash. I would love to do a similar project here in Chahal because there are a lot of rural communities without schools. It was beyond difficult getting permission from my mayor to go help at this project, and it shouldn’t have been. This is something that I need to work on, because I’m can’t live here for two years having to deal with this kind of extreme supervision. I’m just a volunteer.
Wednesday came along, and I woke up extremely ill. The works: diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, weakness, fever. It was not a fun day. Plus, with my half marathon four days later, I was a bit freaked out. I have been looking forward to that more than anything else, and if I couldn’t have run it, I would have been devastated. I rested in my house until it was too hot to survive, then I went up to the main house. The hike almost killed me, almost. It was about 11am, pretty hot, and by the time I got to the house, if I hadn’t found a chair immediately I would have fainted. I was seeing spots. At this point, I was glad my mom wouldn’t let me go to work in the morning. After I threw up I called her and told her I felt better and wanted to go to work. She said no.
So I laid down and rested in the bed in the living room, alongside the three-year-old girl Jimena, because she was going through the same thing. It was adorable, and I didn’t even care if I would come out of it with lice. So this day I was supposed to move to my new house. Obviously, that didn’t happen. The afternoon was similar to the morning. I couldn’t eat a damn thing and felt like I was on my death hammock. One happy moment came, though, when I was watching TV. and a program came on with beautiful scenes of winter wonderlands. Of where, you ask? None other than Yellowstone and the Tetons! It didn’t even bother me that the scenes were accompanied by religious songs. Nor did it bother me that I had a 102º fever with the air temperature the same, and snow was dancing around in my face. It made me happy, not even a bit homesick, oddly enough.
Thursday I woke up feeling like a brand new person; what a relief that was. But I took the morning off, nonetheless, to rest up and to pack up my stuff and clean the house. I went to the office in the afternoon and really didn’t do anything. Although I did finish my book. That’s something. I also had a nice afternoon walking around town, buying vegetables in the market (finally!). And to top off the day, as I was leaving the market, some little kids popped their heads around the corner and shouted out my name. I hadn’t even met them! That completely reinforced that San Fernando is the right town for me to be in. A friend of mine had asked me a month or so ago if I’m a celebrity in my town: if kids just shout out my name. Well, no, they hadn’t. So it made my day that I finally reached celebrity status. I spent a few more hours waiting on my friend Juan to give me a ride to my house to move all of my things. It started out frustrating, but then I reminded myself that it is the last time I’ll have to sit around waiting like that, because I will be living two blocks from the muni and not having to catch a bus home and get home late.
(My new house)So Thursday night I moved into my new house and COOKED DINNER. I’m so happy to be cooking for myself finally. And the house is wonderful, although immediately I got ahead of myself wondering if I would stay here for two years, or want my own place eventually. There are clear advantages to this house: the safety provided by having others live here; not having to buy furniture; the presence of a washing machine. But, then I started remembering how nice it is to have my own place where I can do what I want when I want and decorate how I want (I won’t have to have pictures of random Jesus scenes all over my walls). But I told myself I would wait and feel this out for awhile, since I can’t move out until July anyway. Well, of course I didn’t stop thinking about it. I even had a dream about having my own house.
(My backyard)
As it turns out, though, it was good that I let my mind run away with me this time. When I was sitting around bored in the muni today (Friday), bummed that Don Rudy hadn’t invited me to go out to some communities for an important event, I was chatting with a coworker and told him about my idea of having my own place, and mentioned the only decent house I know of that’s available to rent. He said it was a great place, but that someone else had already inquired, so that I needed to hurry if I wanted it. Immediately I went to talk to the owner, and now I have a house if I want it. I’ve only seen the outside so far, and it’s cute. I’m going to check it out on Wednesday when the daughter who owns it comes back. But that means I have to make a decision then whether I want to rent it in July or not, because they have another person interested. I wanted to see what I think of the place I’m at now first. But I think that in the end, I will want my own house. I just didn’t want to have to decide so soon!
So that was point one of my good day. Point two was riding my bike around town! It was magnificent. It is exactly what I pictured my life to be. Riding my bike through the dirt roads of my quiet little rural town. Back up a sec, point one would actually be that I successfully went for a run. Point two, finding a house. Point three, riding my bike. Point four, going home for lunch. Point five, on a whim, creating a new project with my counterpart. In my environmental education class, I want to make a tree nursery with the kids. My counterpart is a forestry technician and wants to do a reforestation project in the forest reserve. Why not combine the two? So now we have this whole event fomenting in our minds. To top it off, we’re going to invite the mayor to plant a symbolic tree (and help me get back on his good side).
Finally, for the next few weeks, I have something planned to do every day. I have this project to develop; I have a meeting in Coban with other volunteers and tourist sites to create a community tourism committee in the area to create a circuit; I’m starting to work with the Office of the Woman (it sounds better in Spanish) to work with some of the women’s committees in the communities to make and sell artesanias in Las Conchas and the market, and perhaps teach them how to make jam and sell it in the market; as well, there are other small projects and meetings going on. I’m feeling a productive spell coming on! I know it won’t last forever, but I’m going to soak it up while I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment