Trabajo Social

There is one thing I have learned this week, social work is not for me.  Although, I know that I do not want to pursure a career as a social worker, I am learning a lot about the people in El Gorrion.

Every day we do different things with Nic.  A lot of what we've been doing is going to different people's houses and listening to them.  Nic wants us to ask them questions about their lives, their struggles, and their needs.  It is really hard for me to ask them such personal questions because that is not part of our culture at all.  It also doesn't help that Emily and I are both pretty introverted.

Nic sent us on our own today to talk with several people because he had several other things to do in the office, that and he has noticed that we've been struggling to ask questions so he wanted to give us a little push to get us talking more with the families.  It went ok, but it was slightly awkward at times.

It's amazing to me that people that I've never met before, and I may never see again after two weeks will open themselves up to me so much.  Nic has awesome relationships with the people of this community, and the people trust him a ton.  Because of this they are willing to open themselves up to us because we are his students.

I am hoping that in the next couple weeks I will learn a lot about how to communicate in these situations better. 

For now, I'm going to enjoy a relaxing weekend in Magdalena! =)

End of Semana Santa and Back to Magdalena!

The rest of Semana Santa was as much fun as the first half of the week.  I walked around Antigua more and saw more alfombras and processions.  I hung out with Leah and her family more.  It was super fun to have them at our house.  Since my family was unable to make it down, I was really glad they were able to.  It was a lot of fun to go to different places with them to see the excitment in them with all the new places. 

Our family's alfombra.

One day I went with Sydney and a couple other people to Hotel Antigua for breakfast.  Sydney had received money from someone back home to take some people out to eat there for breakfast because when they were in Antigua, that was one of their favorite places.  I can see why!  The hotel is beautiful, and it was really fun to experience it.

One last view of the Cathedral at night

On Easter we went to church.  It was fun to experience Easter Sunday church in Guatemala.  The music was great; however, the sermon was not quite what I'm used to for Easter Sunday. 

Leah and I in the balcony of our room!

After church we went home and finished packing ALL of our stuff.  I seemed to accumulate quite a few extra things.  Everything fit in my suitcases; however, I'm pretty sure that I'll have to do some rearranging to get everything home.  We walked around Antigua one last time before getting picked up to move back to Magdalena.  It was weird walking around Antigua knowing that after living there for three months, I may never get back. 

Leah and I with Elvira, our host "mom" (or Grandma) and Kaori,
 another girl who stayed in our house the last month.

I wasn't not looking forward to going back to Magdalena, but I was going to miss Antigua with all the cute tiendas and cafes.  As soon as we pulled into Magdalena, and I saw my host parents I was glad to be back.

We settled into our room, and then went to Pastor Mario's for Easter dinner.  It was fun to eat as a group again.  When we were finished eating we went home and talked with our host family before going to bed.  It was so much fun for Leah and I because our host brothers have warmed up to us a lot since compared to our first week here.  We were also able to understand them so much more than that first week. 

Today we went to ministry sites.  I will be working with at the social work site in El Gorrion with a man named Nic; however, he was gone today and will be gone tomorrow as well.  Emily, the other girl at that site with me, and I went with Jose at the media site.  We went to El Gorrion and took pictures at the three sites there: the clinic, appropriate technology, and the school.  It was really fun to go back to the school to see the kids again, even if it was just for a little bit.

Me and my new friend Roxy.  She was at the clinic waiting for her turn to see the doctor when we were taking pictures there.  She came up to me and started hanging on me.  Then we went outside and she told me ALL about the flowers, and we played games.

After that we went to Antigua to put the pictures on the computer at the SI office.  I wasn't expecting to go back to Antigua so soon, and it was really different being back.  I definitely feel like I've adjusted to life in Magdalena already.  I love the small town feel.  Tomorrow I'll be working with Jose again, and I think we're planning to go back to Antigua to the social work site there at a hospital called Hermano Pedro and also to the nursing home.

I'm working to enjoy my last 3ish weeks here.  I can't believe how little time I have left here (23 days, but who's counting?).   

Semana Santa in Pictures

HAPPY EASTER!

This week has been absolutely awesome!  I've been so tired because instead of sitting in class all morning and doing homework in the afternoon, I've been walked around all day.  It's fun, but exhausting. There are no words to describe how absolutely beautiful all the alfombras were, so instead of trying to do that here are tons of pictures from the week so far.

Parque Central filled with people to watch the procession.

Starting to make the alfombra at 10:00 for the procession at 8:00 the next morning.

Noah's ark alfombra! 

Central Park was packed with people to watch the procession leave the Cathedral.



"Let the little children come to me."



Alfombra of a procession.

Río Dulce

Last weekend a bunch of us went on a trip to Río Dulce.  It was a super relaxing, fun weekend.  Saturday was spent driving there because it takes about 7 hours to get there.  We stayed at a little hotel/hostel.  There were private rooms, but most of us stayed in the hostel part of it.  I had never stayed in a hostel before, but I was glad I got to experience it.  It felt like a glorified cabin at a summer camp.  The room was built on a dock so it was really cool.

That was where we stayed.

Río Dulce is a river that connects a lake to the Caribbean Sea.  It’s super pretty and it reminded me a lot of Minnesota just being by the water and on a boat.

On Sunday we went on a boat tour all day.  It was super fun to see the river and the ocean from a boat.  We went to the Caribbean Sea, and the beach was beautiful.  There was quite a bit of seaweed, so I opted out of swimming; however, I enjoyed just sitting by the beach.  From the Beach we could see Belize, which made me think of my mom because she’s always wanted to go there.  After that we rode the boat to another town called Livingston to eat lunch. 

Then we rode down to another part of the river to see a castle.  The Spanish had built it 500 years ago when they first settled Guatemala to protect from the pirates.  It was super cool.

Then we went to eat and walked around this little carnival.  The carnival reminded me of an episode of Scooby Doo when they’re at an amusement park at night and it’s a little creepy.  I would not have trusted the rides at this place at all.  A few people from our group braved the Ferris wheel.  It looked like a metal death trap to me.  It went as fast as a roller coaster, no joke.  I was very glad I decided not to experience that part of Guatemala. 

This was one of the most interesting Merry-Go-Rounds I have ever seen!

We headed back to Antigua Monday, and we back around 4:00.  Leah didn’t come with on the trip because her family arrived Sunday afternoon.  It was weird not having her around all weekend, and I was ready to get back to Antigua to see her and meet her family.  Her mom, grandma, and sister are here, and they are actually staying at our house, in our room! 

One of the best parts about this trip was I don’t feel like I’m behind on homework because we are on Spring Break!! 

End of Language School!

Friday morning the only thing separating me from spring break was a 15 minute presentation for Spanish.  I went first to get it over with.  I had note cards, but I didn’t use them at all.  I don’t think I have ever given a presentation in English before without using note cards.  I shocked myself!  Also, I ended up talking pretty fast, and although that isn’t the best for a presentation again I surprised myself with being able to think that fast in Spanish. 

Ingrid, my language teacher, and me.

Because we had so much time left after our presentations, Leah, Sydney, and I went with our teachers to the velación at La Merced, but first we all stopped to get ice cream! 

Our teachers were telling us that because this was a small alfombra it only took about 5 or 6 hours to make.  We all thought it looked pretty big.  We’ll see bigger alfombras Thursday and Friday of Holy Week.

After school I went to the Cathedral to see the start of the children’s procession.  The kids were all SO cute. 

The procession also went past our house, and our Aurelia (the lady who works in our house) and her niece made an alfombra.  Leah and I helped with that which was a lot of fun even though I know our alfombra didn’t compare with the one we saw at La Merced. 

The finished alfombra!

By the time the children’s procession got to our house the little boys were super tired, even though they change carriers every couple blocks.  They were about bent in half, and they would count to three and try to stand up.  It wasn’t working for them too well, but it was super cute.

They're so tired!

After supper a bunch of us went to McDonald’s since we didn’t have any Spanish homework!!  However we were both super tired and had to force ourselves to stay up past 9:00.

By the time I get somewhere with internet where I can actually post this, I will probably already returned from my trip to Rio Dulce.  I’m sure there will be another post soon about that trip, and probably a couple more about Semana Santa because it’s definitely a huge deal here.

Laughs at Language School

Over the past couple days I have provided my language teacher with a few laughs during class...

Yesterday we were working on the subjunctive (a really awful verb tense that I will probably never understand), and she was asking me questions to practice it.  One of the questions was, who would you call if there was a fire at your house?  I said I would call Becky.  She goes, "No, who would you call?"  I kept insisting on Becky because if there was a fire at my house here in Guatemala, the first person I would call would be Becky.  Then she goes, "No, you're here all by yourself, who do you call?"  Then it dawns on me, and I tell her the police.  Then she tells me that's better, but instead of calling the police first, I would call the firemen.  I laughed and felt stupid, but I told her I'd still probably call Becky first and have Becky call the firemen for me.

Today we were reading the newspaper, and one of the articles was about a fire, which brought the topic up again.  Then I realized that in the States we have the same number for the police and the firemen.  I asked her if they have two numbers here, and they do.  Which explains the confusion from the day before.  We both had a good laugh over that.

Then today when I was reading my presentation to her, I said that the nature and culture of Guatemala "atracan" the tourists here.  I meant that they attract tourists; however, "atracar" means to rob or to assault.  I meant to say "atraer."  We both laughed when I realized what "atracar" means.

I only have one day left of school, and then it's Spring Break!!  Whoo Hoo!!

Tikal

So all my Bergman family vacations definitely helped me prepare for this trip, we were picked up at our house at 4:15 on Saturday morning to drive to Guatemala City to catch our 45 minute flight to Flores, where we then drove about an hour to Tikal.

First I’m going to back up a bit.  As we were driving to the airport our driver took a few wrong turns, and when we turned into the airport Leah goes, “I definitely don’t think this is right.”  Well, it was.  The airport looked a little sketchy at 5:00 in the morning because it was a very small domestic airport.  We checked in which consisted of all of us stepping on a scale to be weighed to make sure that the plane could hold all our weight, not going through security, and just walking through without anyone caring what was in our bags.  Not everyone fit on one plane so a few of us ended up going on the bigger plane.  It held 33 people!  Sydney and I thought it was funny that we were in the last row, and it was row 11!  After we took off we were served crackers and juice, and by the time the flight attendant picked up our trash, we were landing! 

When we got to the airport we waited for a van to take us to Tikal.  When we got there we walked around the ruins for several hours with a tour guide.  The first temple we got to we were able to climb, and although I’m not too fond of heights, I didn’t give myself an option.  I made myself start climbing the stairs, which was more like a never ending ladder, before I could change my mind.  The view from the top was awesome; however, I think I would’ve liked it even better had there been a railing.  I was scared to move because I thought I might slip and fall to my death.  I jumped at the first opportunity to climb back down, and my legs were shaking the entire way; however, I did it!

I climbed to the top of this one!

Leah and I

We walked around to several more temples and other ruins, before running into one of my favorite parts of the weekend, wild MONKEYS!  They were so cute!  I may have taken more pictures during the 10 minutes we were watching them, than the rest of the four hours we were at Tikal!  That’s only a slight exaggeration. 

After we saw the monkeys we went to the last temple.  We climbed a ton of stairs, which were actually more like stairs, to the top of an amazing view of the area.  There still wasn’t a railing, but this one seemed less scary than the first because the entire temple wasn’t excavated.  Instead of looking straight down to my death, I saw the tops of trees which would provide a lot more cushion if I fell. 

After that we finally got to eat lunch, at 3:30 after being up since 3:45.  Thankfully Leah and I planned ahead and brought some snacks with us.  Then we drove to where we were staying for the night on the Island of Flores.  We walked into our room and the first thing we saw was an amazing view of the lake with the sun starting to set.

The view from our hotel room.

Leah and I walked around some before eating supper as a group.  Then when we got back we were all exhausted so we started getting ready for bed shortly after returning.  As I’m in my bed getting ready to sleep, I hear “Greta!  Greta!”  It was Leah calling me from her balcony next door.  She wanted to figure out our plans for the next day.  Even when she’s not stuck rooming with me, she still wants to hang out with me.  She’s wonderful.

The next day we walked around for a while to find a place to eat breakfast, and we walked around the island some more.  Then we packed up our stuff and then went to eat lunch as a group.  We ate at this restaurant and Leah and I shared a small pizza and some tostadas with guacamole.  Side note –another great thing about Leah is that she loves to share stuff with me when we go to restaurants like nachos or pizza, or we both order something different and we get to try 2 things.

Then we drove back to the airport, and there was slightly more security this time.  We had to check scissors and things like that, and we also went through security.  We actually ended up leaving about 45 minutes early.  I’ve never heard of that happening before, ever!  We got even more snacks on the way home!  We each got a whole can of pop, chips, and crackers.  Then the flight attendant came by and asked if we wanted anything else! 

By the way, one of the greatest things about the plane was the fact that we got to walk up the steps to get on and off the plane!

Syd and I!

We got back to Antigua around 7:30 and ate at Pizza Mia as a group.  Another SI staff was already there and had everything ordered so it was all ready when we got there.  It was so nice not to have to wait for our food because we were all super tired.  (My mom always laughs at me because she says I’m always telling her about food, and in this post I realized how much I really do talk about food.)  Leah and I walked home and went to bed as soon as we could after getting home, which was still later than I would have liked.

It was a great weekend before the final push of our last week of language school.  I have 4 days left of language school before our spring break!

Wow!  That got extremely long.  I commend you if you actually read all of that.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have.

Friday Spanish Lesson

Butt (or heel) of the bread = suegra

Suegra = mother-in-law

Handcuffs = esposas

Esposas = wives

Snobismo = Snobism, the tendency to try to do whatever seems to be in style.

Pieces of my Week

I know I've updated this a lot already this week, but I'm feeling sorry for my dad who's stuck in bed after having his hip replaced last week.  I feel like I should give him 5 minutes of excitement since the most exciting part of his day is making the trip out to get the mail.


"You WILL get sick."

This is what we were told in our pre-trip meetings.  Well, if the only time I get sick is this past Tuesday, I won't complain.  I was at school reading my homework to my teacher, and I was thinking that I didn't feel very good.  I told myself to suck it up, and that I'm probably just exaggerating how I feel after the first sign of not feeling well.  After about 5 minutes, I decided that I really didn't feel well and should probably go talk to Becky.  I didn't quite make it to Becky...  I went home after that, and felt better about 2 hours later.  It was the weirdest thing.  I took a zinc tablet before breakfast to help boost my immune system, but I don't think it went well with the pineapple I had for breakfast. 


Sucesos Actuales-

I realized I haven't mentioned much about my Spanish class in my past few blogs.  School isn't the most exciting thing I do here, so I guess it just doesn't get mentioned much.  After tomorrow, I have five days left of class, but they'll probably be the most stressful.  I have a 12-15 page paper due, and I have to give a 15-18 minute presentation to the other students taking the same class as me and their teachers.  Some of the other parts of the class have included interviewing 10 people and writing reviews of the interviews as well as watching several movies and documentaries about Guatemala.  It's been interesting, and although it isn't what I expected it to be, I'm learning a lot.  However, I don't think I'll be crying when it's over.


The paperboys-

Every day for our class Leah and I have to get a paper because we're studying current issues in Guatemala.  We get our papers from this older man and this younger boy who appears to be his son.  When they see us walking down the street, they get two Prensa Libres out for us.  Today as we left the older man goes, "Ok, see you later." in this cute English accent because obviously his native language is Spanish.


Skype with Dad-

I Skyped with my dad today to help break up his long day in bed.  One of the things he asked was, "So you're really not going to tell me what you got me?"  Haha!  He's worse than a little boy!  When I told him no, he replied with, "But what if you give it to me and I don't know what it is?"  He makes me laugh!



This weekend we're leaving for Tikal Saturday morning at 4:15.  I'm really looking forward to it, even if it means I won't have very much time this weekend to work on my paper for Spanish.

“THAT WAS SO COOL!”

I bet I said that at least 30 times to Leah Sunday night. 

Leah and I rushed (literally, we ran) home from our group dinner on Sunday night because we did not want to miss the procession going past our house.  We didn’t need to worry because on Guatemalan time the procession didn’t come for a good 45 minutes after it was supposed to. 

Shortly after getting home, Elvira’s (my host mom/grandma) family started making the alfombra.  I was too worried I would be in the way if we helped, but Leah went down and asked if she could help.  After seeing Leah help, I decided I didn’t want to miss out on anything so I went down to help make it too.  If it weren’t for Leah, I wouldn’t do anything in Antigua.  I’m pretty sure God knew what I needed in a roommate.  I’m so glad  I went down to help.  How many people can say that they’ve helped make an alfombra?  Yeah, not many…at least not many people from the States.

I actually think that Leah is the only person in this picture that lives in our house or is family of Elvira.  The rest are staying at the hotel across the street and decided to help.

To make the alfombra, first they put all the pine needles on the street and made them all even.  Then we took part of a coconut plant and made the border.  After that the family started making the outline for the things in the middle of the alfombra using flowers, and then we helped fill it in.  We were literally working on the last little touches of it up until the procession was coming.  Just in time for them to walk all over it.

The finished product!

Then I raced upstairs to see the procession from our balcony.  I was going to watch it from the street, but I decided that I will be able to watch plenty of processions from the street during Semana Santa because not all the processions come down our street.  IT WAS SO COOL!  We had the perfect view of it from our room.  Leah and I kept saying how we have the best room in all of Antigua. 

One of the funniest parts of the procession was the "tren de limpieza" (the cleaning train).  There's this big truck and a bulldozer that come by after the procession.  A bunch of guys scoop up the alfombra into the bulldozer, and then they dump it in the back of the truck.  And BAM!!  The only clue that there was a procession is the smell of incense. 

Tren de limpieza!

After the procession Elvira was laughing at me because I was so excited about how cool it was.  It was the perfect way to end an awesome weekend!

Another Amazing Day in Antigua

I feel like every weekend here in Guatemala I say, “Wow!  This had been the best weekend yet!”  Then I find myself saying the exact same thing the next weekend.  Well, this weekend didn’t disappoint.

 

Leah and I by some flowers at the ruins.



To start off my day I went to the Pacas (the huge Salvation Army-like part of the market), and I found this really cool purse for Q 3.0, which is about 40 cents!  I also found another cool bag for super cheap there as well. 

Ruins at the Cathedral

The Alfombra

Then later before lunch Leah, Sydney, Laura, and I went to visit some ruins.  We went to the main cathedral in central park first, and saw old parts of the church that are now ruins.  Then we walked in the actual cathedral to see the alfombra (which means carpet in English).  They make them out of flowers around Easter time for the processions, and they’re beautiful.  Then when we turned to leave the church, we realized that a wedding was about to start, and the bride was getting ready to walk down the aisle.  It was really random, and we didn’t really know what to do because we were kind of stuck.  So we just sat in the very back of the church with a few other tourists who were in the same boat as we were.  It was really weird for us, but the Guatemalans seemed like it happens often.  I thought it was really odd that the cathedral was open for tourists in the middle of a wedding.  Then we another church called La Merced to visit some more ruins.

La Merced

After lunch we went to the professional fútbol game here in Antigua, which was quite the experience.  I don’t really know anything about soccer; I was mainly going just to experience it because soccer is such a huge part of the Guatemalan culture.  The game was a blast, both the atmosphere and the actual game.  Antigua won 6-2, so it was a really fun game.  The fans were crazy, and I couldn’t understand most of what the fans around me were saying.  I think that was ok.  I’m pretty sure most of the words coming out of their mouths were words that are not part of my vocabulary in English! 

GOAL!!

We also found out today that tomorrow our family is making an alfombra in front of our house because a procession is going down our street.  I’m SUPER excited because Leah and I have the best view ever from our balcony.  This only adds to the awesomeness of the weekend!!