miércoles, 8 de agosto de 2007
Water fight
So I decided to start a waterfight with my brothers the other day. It was a lot of fun. Apparently water fights aren't too common here in Guatemala. It was a new experience for my brothers, but they caught on quick; and my youngest brother Omar added his own twist to activity by urinating on his brother Chejo at the end!
martes, 24 de julio de 2007
El Salvador Trip!!!!
I cannot remember the last time I had a more enjoyable vacation! Last week we all went to Sunzal El Salvador, a small village near La Libertad. It is really small but has one of the best surfing beaches in the world (top ten… according to the pamphlet they gave us). Anyways we found this sweet hotel for $8.66 a night! It was so nice for eight bucks!! We had a balcony right over a river and about 50 yards or so from the beach. The owner has this monkey who’s always coming around.
Most of my time was spent chilling out in hammocks they had all around the hotel, eating at these amazingly good and cheap restaurants, and lying on the beach! I also rented a surf board and learned how to surf!! Oh man it was so much fun; I got up my first try with out any lessons or anything! I think that I definitely want to go to law school in Southern California now. I could get used to surfing on a regular basis!!
While there we also became very good friends with some Europeans who were at the same hotel. There was Paul from England, Paul from Germany, and Sandro and Sebastian from Switzerland. On multiple occasions during the week we sat around with them at our hotel, at restaurants, and on the beach talking about a great deal of different topics; religion, politics, and life in general. We spent the nights playing English card games, Mafia, a game they thoroughly enjoyed, and jamming out to a cheap little guitar Matt (another student with us) bought! I had some really cool conversations with them, definitely broadened my perspective on a lot of things. I don’t think they had met many Mormons in their life, but I think we left a pretty good impression on them. I really enjoyed how open minded they were about whatever it is we talked about, opened minded but at the same time frank; which is very refreshing.
Also while in El Salvador I shaved… I’ve been growing my beard out for the last two months. Ok Mom, calm down! It was for my personal safety, I mean if you have the choice to rob two people and one of them has a big ol’ beard and the other is abiding by BYU’s grooming standards, who are you going to rob? Exactly! I’m glad to see we see eye to eye on this. I’m putting up pics on facebook so if anyone’s interested in seeing it, just have Rachel or Jessica sign on and show you.
Most of my time was spent chilling out in hammocks they had all around the hotel, eating at these amazingly good and cheap restaurants, and lying on the beach! I also rented a surf board and learned how to surf!! Oh man it was so much fun; I got up my first try with out any lessons or anything! I think that I definitely want to go to law school in Southern California now. I could get used to surfing on a regular basis!!
While there we also became very good friends with some Europeans who were at the same hotel. There was Paul from England, Paul from Germany, and Sandro and Sebastian from Switzerland. On multiple occasions during the week we sat around with them at our hotel, at restaurants, and on the beach talking about a great deal of different topics; religion, politics, and life in general. We spent the nights playing English card games, Mafia, a game they thoroughly enjoyed, and jamming out to a cheap little guitar Matt (another student with us) bought! I had some really cool conversations with them, definitely broadened my perspective on a lot of things. I don’t think they had met many Mormons in their life, but I think we left a pretty good impression on them. I really enjoyed how open minded they were about whatever it is we talked about, opened minded but at the same time frank; which is very refreshing.
Also while in El Salvador I shaved… I’ve been growing my beard out for the last two months. Ok Mom, calm down! It was for my personal safety, I mean if you have the choice to rob two people and one of them has a big ol’ beard and the other is abiding by BYU’s grooming standards, who are you going to rob? Exactly! I’m glad to see we see eye to eye on this. I’m putting up pics on facebook so if anyone’s interested in seeing it, just have Rachel or Jessica sign on and show you.
El Salvador Trip!!!!
I cannot remember the last time I had a more enjoyable vacation! Last week we all went to Sunzal El Salvador, a small village near La Libertad. It is really small but has one of the best surfing beaches in the world (top ten… according to the pamphlet they gave us). Anyways we found this sweet hotel for $8.66 a night! It was so nice for eight bucks!! We had a balcony right over a river and about 50 yards or so from the beach. The owner has this monkey who’s always coming around.
Most of my time was spent chilling out in hammocks they had all around the hotel, eating at these amazingly good and cheap restaurants, and lying on the beach! I also rented a surf board and learned how to surf!! Oh man it was so much fun; I got up my first try with out any lessons or anything! I think that I definitely want to go to law school in Southern California now. I could get used to surfing on a regular basis!!
While there we also became very good friends with some Europeans who were at the same hotel. There was Paul from England, Paul from Germany, and Sandro and Sebastian from Switzerland. On multiple occasions during the week we sat around with them at our hotel, at restaurants, and on the beach talking about a great deal of different topics; religion, politics, and life in general. We spent the nights playing English card games, Mafia, a game they thoroughly enjoyed, and jamming out to a cheap little guitar Matt (another student with us) bought! I had some really cool conversations with them, definitely broadened my perspective on a lot of things. I don’t think they had met many Mormons in their life, but I think we left a pretty good impression on them. I really enjoyed how open minded they were about whatever it is we talked about, opened minded but at the same time frank; which is very refreshing.
Also while in El Salvador I shaved… I’ve been growing my beard out for the last two months. Ok Mom, calm down! It was for my personal safety, I mean if you have the choice to rob two people and one of them has a big ol’ beard and the other is abiding by BYU’s grooming standards, who are you going to rob? Exactly! I’m glad to see we see eye to eye on this. I’m putting up pics on facebook so if anyone’s interested in seeing it, just have Rachel or Jessica sign on and show you.
Most of my time was spent chilling out in hammocks they had all around the hotel, eating at these amazingly good and cheap restaurants, and lying on the beach! I also rented a surf board and learned how to surf!! Oh man it was so much fun; I got up my first try with out any lessons or anything! I think that I definitely want to go to law school in Southern California now. I could get used to surfing on a regular basis!!
While there we also became very good friends with some Europeans who were at the same hotel. There was Paul from England, Paul from Germany, and Sandro and Sebastian from Switzerland. On multiple occasions during the week we sat around with them at our hotel, at restaurants, and on the beach talking about a great deal of different topics; religion, politics, and life in general. We spent the nights playing English card games, Mafia, a game they thoroughly enjoyed, and jamming out to a cheap little guitar Matt (another student with us) bought! I had some really cool conversations with them, definitely broadened my perspective on a lot of things. I don’t think they had met many Mormons in their life, but I think we left a pretty good impression on them. I really enjoyed how open minded they were about whatever it is we talked about, opened minded but at the same time frank; which is very refreshing.
Also while in El Salvador I shaved… I’ve been growing my beard out for the last two months. Ok Mom, calm down! It was for my personal safety, I mean if you have the choice to rob two people and one of them has a big ol’ beard and the other is abiding by BYU’s grooming standards, who are you going to rob? Exactly! I’m glad to see we see eye to eye on this. I’m putting up pics on facebook so if anyone’s interested in seeing it, just have Rachel or Jessica sign on and show you.
viernes, 29 de junio de 2007
A typical day in Guatemala
Today was a normal day not overly exciting. I woke up at about 6:30, laid in bed daydreaming until 7:00, at which point I got up to study K’iche for a half an hour before I ate breakfast with my family. I’m not really a morning person so breakfast usually is eaten slow, slow enough to allow me to wake up all the way. My parents wake up at around 4:30 to start running the corn mill, which is right next to our house and which occasionally wakes me up earlier.
Breakfast like all meals and drinks is served hot. The food is really simple; sometimes we just have a pair of hard boiled eggs; luckily we can load up on tortillas to make up for any lack of food. This morning we ate a type of vegetable soup with a small piece of meat. We are usually served one of two types of drinks Pinol, or Atole (and on a rare occasion we have a cup of milk). Pinol is a like a type of herbal tea, and Atole is a sweet drink made by mixing corn dough in water and adding sugar. It’s been hard for me to adjust to simple tasting food; I can’t even describe how much I’ve been craving a fast food value meal! Even when compared with the food I ate while in Mexico this food is still very simple.
It is interesting to make the comparison of Guatemala with Mexico, because I always thought that Mexico was really poor, but being here and reflecting back on the economic situation in Mexico I realize that as bad as Mexico is it’s considerably better off than Guatemala. You can tell just by looking at the diet of the people here. My father on a good day will earn about $3.50 from his mill. He also works at a school watching the main gate so the students don’t leave every other week, but I’m not sure how much he makes there. Having me here certainly helps the economic situation for the family; all of the BYU students pay about 30 dollars a week for room and board (200 Quetzals).
After breakfast I wash my dirty clothes by hand, a very laborious activity. Luckily however I’m a veteran at washing clothes by hand, and received plenty of practice on my mission. I only wash clothes once a week, and when I finished today I went and studied until lunch. I’m getting exposed to all the major Latin American Authors from the Spanish conquest to the present day, and looking for Pre-Colombian indigenous influence. I’m also reading various translations and original texts of Pre-Colombian texts.
We eat lunch around 1:00 pm and as soon as I’m finished I hit the books again. This time I review the materials I have on narratology, which is the main thrust of my Honors Thesis (A narratological analysis of the premier Pre-Colombian Maya literary text). In case you’re unfamiliar with narratology it examines the broad structure of stories, and how they’re told. After I study for a little while I head out to meet with some people from the community to do some interviews and to practice my K’iche. I’m trying to get as many interviews as I can, to record people in the community telling stories. I’ll save an explanation of the purposes of these interviews in my research for another blog entry.
Today like every other day it rains in the afternoon. Instead of having a four seasons here there are only two, rainy season and dry season. It’s not overly warm because we are in the highlands I’m actually not very sure what the exact elevation here is but I’m pretty sure it’s higher than Utah, and it counteracts being as far south as we are. By about 6:00 I’m back home and today I’m going to watch some soccer, it’s the American Cup right now, and US just lost their first game to Argentina, but Mexico beat Brazil so I’m still feeling pretty good. I really like Soccer a lot!! It’s a sweet sport; I really need to go see Real Salt Lake. I actually watch the soccer games on a channel that is broadcast from Logan and Salt Lake (I think it’s the Univision Spanish channel there), I’m not sure quite how that all works but during the breaks I watch all these commercials intended for the Latin population in Utah!! They actually always make me really homesick, which is something I never thought a Wells Fargo commercial could do.
Breakfast like all meals and drinks is served hot. The food is really simple; sometimes we just have a pair of hard boiled eggs; luckily we can load up on tortillas to make up for any lack of food. This morning we ate a type of vegetable soup with a small piece of meat. We are usually served one of two types of drinks Pinol, or Atole (and on a rare occasion we have a cup of milk). Pinol is a like a type of herbal tea, and Atole is a sweet drink made by mixing corn dough in water and adding sugar. It’s been hard for me to adjust to simple tasting food; I can’t even describe how much I’ve been craving a fast food value meal! Even when compared with the food I ate while in Mexico this food is still very simple.
It is interesting to make the comparison of Guatemala with Mexico, because I always thought that Mexico was really poor, but being here and reflecting back on the economic situation in Mexico I realize that as bad as Mexico is it’s considerably better off than Guatemala. You can tell just by looking at the diet of the people here. My father on a good day will earn about $3.50 from his mill. He also works at a school watching the main gate so the students don’t leave every other week, but I’m not sure how much he makes there. Having me here certainly helps the economic situation for the family; all of the BYU students pay about 30 dollars a week for room and board (200 Quetzals).
After breakfast I wash my dirty clothes by hand, a very laborious activity. Luckily however I’m a veteran at washing clothes by hand, and received plenty of practice on my mission. I only wash clothes once a week, and when I finished today I went and studied until lunch. I’m getting exposed to all the major Latin American Authors from the Spanish conquest to the present day, and looking for Pre-Colombian indigenous influence. I’m also reading various translations and original texts of Pre-Colombian texts.
We eat lunch around 1:00 pm and as soon as I’m finished I hit the books again. This time I review the materials I have on narratology, which is the main thrust of my Honors Thesis (A narratological analysis of the premier Pre-Colombian Maya literary text). In case you’re unfamiliar with narratology it examines the broad structure of stories, and how they’re told. After I study for a little while I head out to meet with some people from the community to do some interviews and to practice my K’iche. I’m trying to get as many interviews as I can, to record people in the community telling stories. I’ll save an explanation of the purposes of these interviews in my research for another blog entry.
Today like every other day it rains in the afternoon. Instead of having a four seasons here there are only two, rainy season and dry season. It’s not overly warm because we are in the highlands I’m actually not very sure what the exact elevation here is but I’m pretty sure it’s higher than Utah, and it counteracts being as far south as we are. By about 6:00 I’m back home and today I’m going to watch some soccer, it’s the American Cup right now, and US just lost their first game to Argentina, but Mexico beat Brazil so I’m still feeling pretty good. I really like Soccer a lot!! It’s a sweet sport; I really need to go see Real Salt Lake. I actually watch the soccer games on a channel that is broadcast from Logan and Salt Lake (I think it’s the Univision Spanish channel there), I’m not sure quite how that all works but during the breaks I watch all these commercials intended for the Latin population in Utah!! They actually always make me really homesick, which is something I never thought a Wells Fargo commercial could do.
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