Let´s talk about my house

This is my bedroom. Notice the stack of washed, dried, and folded laundry on my bed that awaits me every day. Also you can´t read the posters, but they are covered with advice from Jesus.

This is the ¨pila¨ where clothes, dishes, hands, teeth, etc. are washed.

I needed help opening the cans of tomato sauce. That is my host dad, Don Cesar

My family, and my buddy Jesse´s family eating the dinner we prepared. Chicken Cacciatorre. From the head of the table clockwise: Octavio (my bro), Don Cesar (my dad), Doña Dora (my mom), Doña Olivia (Jesse´s mom), Carla and Carmen (Jesse´s little sisters), Don Raul (Jesse´s dad), Jesse, Yulisa (my host sister with her son Diego on her lap).

This is my little buddy, the mischievious Diego. I´m not sure what this kid takes to get all his energy, but I want some.

This is a view of my street from the roof.

And this is the view the opposite way.

This is the penthouse. Apparently I have a brother that is a environmental engineer in Columbia. He left his room in tact for the enjoyment of all. It´s tough to see, but in the corners of the room there are surround sound speakers. Is this really Peace Corps?

I think I will take a few minutes and describe my living conditions in some detail. In comparison to what I expected to encounter here, and in comparison to the way some of my fellow trainees are living, I am in relative luxury.

My house is simple and cold, at least downstairs. We have running water and electricity 24/7, which is much more then many of the homes in Guatemala can claim. The floors are all cement, and they are freezing at night. In the front of the house is a small store that provides what little income my family has. They sell all sorts of little trinkets and candies. In the picture above of me preparing dinner, granted with help opening the cans from Don Cesar (they don´t have a conventional can opener), you can see a little of the kitchen. This room consists of a very small oven/stovetop, the table we eat at every day (except for big dinners with company), a cabinet that holds all of the dishware, a coffee maker (which is a luxury, because most families simply boil water and use instant coffee, yuck!), a blender, a refridgerator (another luxury; although there is nothing ever in it), and a microwave.

In the next picture you can see the main room of the house, a big open room with a table, although the table is usually off to the side. In the back on the left are the stairs to go upstairs. These stairs are not enclosed, and the ceiling is low enough that if I´m not paying attention I hit my head, but that has only happened once thus far. In the back on the right is the hallway to the back of the house. My bedroom is the second door on the right, directly across is the bathroom. After this the house opens up to the outside where you will find the pila (pictured above). If you look behind the pila you can see a rug thrown over something. That something is a bird cage with some kind of little song birds in it, about 5 of them. They are kind of nice to wake up to.

The bathroom is simple; a toilet, a shower, thats it. You can not flush the toilet paper in Guatemala, the sewer system can not handle it, so next to every toilet is a wastebasket. I´m sure you can deduce for yourselves how this smells. We do have hot water, and it is kind of interesting how we get this. There is a device called a calientador attached to the shower head. Basically this is an electric device that heats up the water as it flows through, I have no idea how you do not get electrocuted, but you don´t. Once you overcome this fear of death by shower water you realize this is actually a much more efficient process then a hot water tank.

My room is cozy as you can see. Not much to say about that except that it is cleaned for me every day and my laundry is magically done when I get home. I´m not sure how this is supposed to train me to survive on my own, but I am enjoying it while it lasts.

Diego. This rambunctious (spelled correctly?) litte almost four year old is my ¨nephew¨. At first he would not even look at me. This lasted for about a week. Then we were finally able to get him to say hola and adios. Next we moved onto a stage where he found it extremely entertaining to take a little stuffed pig with a clip attached to it and try and attach it to my ear. Then we started playing soccer in the house and working on his english together. Now I am told he cried the other day when he came over and I wasn´t there.

The penthouse is in no way indicative of what the rest of the house is like, or what any other room in our whole community is like. This room stands in stark contrast to its surrounding environment. That said, I am glad it is above my house. We often hold our spanish classes there, Saturday we watched Forrest Gump in español. Hearing a spanish speaker try and immitate Tom Hanks is comical, and the translation is way off in many parts. I will most definitely miss this room after my three months here, but it is nice to have a taste of back home right up the stairs.

A real quick summary of dinner, because I am running out of time here. We went into the capital city for a little tour, to see the embassy and some other important locations. We are actually supposed to avoid going to Guatemala City at all costs, due to the high levels of crime and violence there. We stopped at a Walmart-esk store where Jesse and I picked up all the ingredients to make chicken cacciatore. We had both families over for a big meal that night. We didn´t get dinner ready until an hour after our projected time, this I blame on the weak stove/oven. I thought it was very good, and everyone cleaned their plates; however, I think they would have cleaned them if it was absolutely terrible too, so its tough to tell what they really thought. They said they enjoyed it, and I know they appreciated the gesture.

I have so many more pics and so much more to say, but I am short on time here. A quick little teaser, if I get time in the next couple days I will be putting a new post about my trip to Volcan Pacaya last Sunday. This was amazing and I have some incredible pics. Oh, and for she who inquired about the altitude, I have adjusted very well actually. Thanks. Adios amigos.