Monday: Explored the local spots around our zone, one in
particular was the flower market! I am not exactly a flower person, I prefer
cheese. However Becca certainly is and since the flowers are so exotic,
beautiful AND cheap here…she wanted to take advantage and get some to decorate
our little home every week. As we walked, in the floral aroma was so enticing,
I felt as if I was just floating in a garden. We certainly stopped to smell the
roses, and then some. We started picking out what we wanted and asked the
little shop lady if we could take some individual ones out of a bundle…long
story short there was a miscommunication (even with a fluent Spanish speaker)
and she snatched the flowers Becca was holding and started yelling at us.
Clearly we weren’t supposed to separate certain bundles. No matter, we simply
found someone who actually wanted our business and got some beautiful flowers
from him. Goodness Ive never seen so many beautiful flowers in one place. It
was enchanting. I think I have used this word a lot to describe Guatemala, but
it seems to be the best fit. After our exploring we had a relaxing night at
home still recooperating from our long weekend.
Tuesday: Got to see a skin graft surgery! It was pretty
cool, but what I was most focused on was how…different the OR setting is
compared to the ORs in our American hospitals. Of course this was one of the
major reasons I chose to come volunteer in Guatemala, to be able to compare the
differences in the hospital setting. And boy was it different.
After volunteering we had our Spanish lessons, since its
only Becca and I currently living at the home base we had one on one lessons
with Rosario for quite some time. During Becca’s lesson I helped Silvia (our
cook) make some tamales because one of my goals is to learn how to make
delicious tamales (keyword: delicious…not terrible dry ones) with chipiline. We
magically had about an hour long conversation, whenever we stumble across a
language barrier I write down the words and look them up and I have made a nice
little English-Spanish translation notebook for her. She absolutely loves it
and it helps me practice as well. I adore this woman. She is a single mom with
four kids and has had quite the rough life, plus she’s a total dork just like
me so we pick at each other constantly even without understanding each other
sometimes, it's a great feeling knowing that there can still be such a deep
connection between two people without the need for words.
Speaking of words….I crammed about 50 new vocabulary words
into my brain and it was quite painful. I have got my work cut out for me,
that's for sure. Conjugating verbs is my worst nightmare, this whole language
thing is really helping me gain more patience, but at a cost. Although some
progress is better than none, so for that I am grateful for my semi-photographic
memory.
Wednesday: SHOPPING!!! Okay I kind of jumped the gun there,
let’s go back to the morning. Thank goodness I had two cups of coffee this
morning, because I was in desperate need of energy when I arrived in the burn
unit. The tables were pushed aside where we normally have the kids and moms sit
and do some crafts. Katia, the kids, moms, and the psychologist greet me with
“YAY YOU ARE GOING TO DANCE TODAY!” ….great. Don't get me wrong, if you know me
at all, you know I can muster up some energy whenever necessary, especially
when it is needed for dancing. So I was excited. But with all these eyes on me
and Katia? Not so much. We turned on the radio and just quickly choregraphed
some salsa and bachata moves right away. We got some of the mothers and kids to
dance with us and made it totally worth dripping sweat in that tiny room
(without A/C might I add). They loved
it.
So today is the “McFeliz dia de Ninos” here in Guatemala,
which means that McDonalds donates 100% of their proceeds from all the big mac
purchases towards the Ronald McDonald House Foundation. This was the 15th
Anniversary for the cause and all the money went towards purchasing hearing
aids for children who are hearing impaired. Sure, Ill eat a Big Mac for that.
So long as there are French fries, that's a must. I could not believe how
popular this is. I didn't see one person today without a McDonald’s something-or-other
in their hand. We walked in and there was a news crew, some famous people who I
don't know…I mean it was packed. I found out that last year they sold over
40,000 Big Macs, they ran out so quick they had to start giving people tickets
they could use for a purchase later on. Wow. Do we have this in America?! It
was the first guilt free trip Ive ever had to McDonalds.
For our activity today, we just went shopping, we were
supposed to go to a museum, but it was closed. Oh. Darn. Im not going to lie. I
really miss shopping. We have already had an American day by eating junk food,
might as well finish it out, am I right? We went to the Miraflores Mall which
is quite popular here and really nice. I felt like I was back home. I am pretty
sure Becca likes shopping more than me…so this could get quite dangerous.
However, I resisted the urge and only bought exactly what I came in there to
buy. A tank top for our weekend trip to Semuc Champey and a memory card for the
camera Rika left me since I am without. WOOOOO! Oh and I bought some gifts for
people. But that doesn't count. I had to tell Becca “no” about spending a
weekend at home and just shopping. That was a very difficult no.
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