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After a rousing afternoon of soccer games, in which the whole school participated, the Fantastic Foundation Five are preparing for the forthcoming week of rest and relaxation during which we will all be taking off for parts unknown. After weeks of deep thought and discussion, the destination decisions were finally arrived it: Brian, Fernando and I will be spending the week at the mystical and marvelous Atitlan, while Angie and Chat are making a break for the border and heading into Mexico. As I will be again out of internet contact for some time, I thought it would be good to update before leaving and share with you the April goals that have been set forth by our merry band. We have made group goals every month so far and been fairly successful in achieving them and I feel certain that April will be no exception. So here they are, in no particular order, except that in which they spilled forth from our motivated little brains:
1) Throw a HUGE birthday party for Chat, Jess and Fer.- We are all April babies and have thus decided that an enormous fiesta to celebrate us is in order. Some students have even suggested that we hire the marimba band to play. I can’t imagine anything more exciting.
2) Continue work on the pool.- This is the brain child of Brian and Fer who concocted a plan to build a pool on the roof of our house. The cinder blocks and cement have already been purchased and construction is waiting to commence. I’m not particularly invested in this project, but I did contribute money for the building supplies in order to secure my pool membership and not have to pay the required fee for use of the facility.
3) Close 2 of the 3 deals and have “anti-person-who-didn’t-close-the-deal-night”. – This refers to the attempted wooing of Mateanos that is taking place by some of the teachers and their efforts to secure a kiss from their conquests. I am unfortunately not taking part in this exciting event, but on the positive side, this also means I am exempted from danger of being ostracized for an entire night for failing to obtain lip-to-lip contact.
4) Invite 3 new people over.- We would like to make new friends and invite them over for pleasant conversation and/or subject them to our (mostly successful) culinary attempts.
5) Doll up the Foundation.- We recently renovated what was a guest room into a communal living room and we enjoy lazing about and spending quality family time together. Our first decorating effort was huge charcoal self-portraits that we hung up to celebrate how great we are. They are pretty fabulous, but this is only the beginning of our efforts to really put a personal touch on these dreary cement walls.
6) Learn 3 romantic phrases in Chuj.- Further efforts towards progressing the relationships with Matellanos, by whispering sweet nothings in their native language. We may not know how to say, “How much are those mangos?” or “I really enjoy learning about Guatemalan culture” or “Stop doing that immediately students”, but I think it’s really crucial that we can say “I like your eyes.”
7) Go to a cantina. – Usually we get plenty of interaction with local drunks as they stumble up to us as we’re sitting on the stoop eating peanuts and engage us in scintillating conversation about….????various unintelligible topics, but we thought it might be nice for a change to go to them and spare them the long walk. That’s what friends do.
Have and not eat a chocolate centerpiece.- Real chocolate is a luxury here in San Mateo and keeping it around to enjoy has been an issue for us here. In April, we plan to exert self-control and keep a glorious presentation of chocolate sitting in the middle of our kitchen table for at least a week.
9) Have a fun trip! A distinct possibility for fulfilling this goal may be a group excursion to Xela to attend the Potato Festival. We’ll keep you posted.
10) New drink night! – In a stroke of genius, we came up with an idea for a tasty cocktail called cuxagria. This will be probably be a tasty mixture of fresh fruit, cuxa, and artificially-flavored grape drink mix, because wine is too difficult to obtain. This and other fantastic concoctions will be sampled one balmy evening in April when we are all relaxing together in the living room. Dance party will almost certainly ensue afterwards.
That’s it folks. Please feel free to offer your words of encouragement and support in these lofty goals we have set for ourselves.
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I must make my apologies once again for the lapse in information flow from this SMI-dweller. But do not for a moment think that this has been an apathetic or merely laconic dismissal of my blogging duties. Nay, let the fault be laid squarely at the feet of those tyrannical controllers of internet who have been carelessly toying with our worldy connections as they fail to provide sufficient bandwidth. We are not your puppets you unfeeling business-types! Yes our connection was completely lost for over 2 weeks, and has been sketchy since then. This is actually the third time I’ve tried to write this post, so please be patient with me and forgive the delay in news. Somehow we muddled through without the latest celebrity gossip and infinite accessability of facebook photos, and even managed to have some good times away from a computer screen! Here are some of the exciting happenings that took place:
A group of musicians from the US came for a week to work with the students recording a CD of marimba, vocals, rhythm and some music the kids wrote themselves. Watch out Latin Grammys, here come the kids of Centro Comunitario. This was a slightly hectic time for all of us here at the Foundation, as we were serving as headquarters and dining establishment for 14 people. Our friend and companero Chat, was sadly forced to flee into exile from this madness and now lives upstairs with our landlord and his adorable family where he feasts like a king and enjoys the company of great kids. We miss him….but he’s in a better place. Anyways, the music project was a lot of fun and I had a great time hanging out, helping to translate and occasionally amping up the creativity of the kids.
Beth Neville, our director and her videographer friend Chip, enjoyed a 3 week stay here at El Hospedaje Fundacion. They cheerfully tolerated and sometimes even participated in the shenanigans of this group of youngsters. While here, Chip worked on a short film starring some of our students that was a brief interpretation of Romeo and Juliet entitled “Xapin y Axul: A Mayan Romance”. Don’t miss it when it comes to theatres near you- it features some of the most beautiful people you will ever lay eyes upon. Upon the departure of Beth and Chip last week, we threw a small farewall party complete with snacks and party games. A very successful round of telephone took place, which was enjoyed by all. Providing extra-hilarity was the fact that one of the guests got “slightly” tipsy and kept changing the message to “I Love Jessica.”
One beautiful and sunny Saturday morning we set out on an expedition to the top of Cerro Bobi- the highest point around San Mateo, which is home to the cell phone towers which provide the wonderful opportunity for all of our students to chat with friends even outside the school during class. We went with some friends who served as wonderful guides and forcibly conquered the 2-hour uphill battle. When we arrived at the top we then proceeded to climb up the rickety ladders to the tops of the towers, which luckily were not protected by any sort of gates or fences- lawsuits must be slightly less common here in SMI. About half way up I realized that I do in fact still have a slight fear of heights, but I completed the ascension and the view was definitely worth it. It was frightening and exhilarating and probably dangerous and great for me. After laying our feet on solid ground again we enjoyed a hearty lunch of beef, onions, beans and tortillas, flame-grilled to our liking over a roaring fire. We sunned ourselves and gathered up strength for the break-neck race back down the mountain to our beloved little pueblo.
On one of our traditional Sunday pizza nights we had the pleasure of teaching Maria, Eulalia and Andres, the kids upstairs how to make a pizza. In return, they laughed and sang and danced and entertained us and made our kitchen a beautiful place for a few hours. After dinner we played telephone- hey, it’s a Foundation favorite. There were also some discrpancies in the transferred messages in this game- most of them ended up being jokes about Chat. These changes were traced back to the mischievious grin of tiny Eulalia.
I have become friends with two very sweet girls from 9th grade, Juana and Maria who assisted me in the crucial and immensely thrilling task of purchasing a corte!! Cortes are the long skirts that are the traditional indigenous clothing of the women here. They are basically extremely long, heavy pieces of beautiful fabric that you wrap around you and tie tightly around your waist. Mine is bright pink and red with shiny thread and I love wearing it, although I am still getting used to taking tiny little steps rather than my long-hurried pant-wearing stride. It’s nice to feel like I’m a little more a part of the culture and all the kids get really excited to see the gringa teachers wearing cortes. They are a little disappointed to see me return to wearing pants for part of the week, but I’m still unable to resist the siren call of the practicality of jeans.
I have received the fabulous news that Miss Mary Beth Butler will be gracing SMI with her presence in mid-June. Preparations for her arrival have already commenced, including the writing of love poems and romantic songs by most of the boys in my primero class. They are not deterred by either her age or her height, and have assured me that love is the most important thing and one of them WILL marry her. Watch out Mary Beth, for the battle for your heart is about to begin.
Well, I believe that is sufficient for the moment- this is the last week before we have vacation for Semana Santa. Plans for our travels are still uncertain but we are thinking about visiting Lake Atitlan for at least part of the week. I will try to update soon after my return on the wonderful sights we are blessed with. Hope everyone enjoys their holidays! Think of me while you’re eating jelly beans and Peeps! Poor disadvantaged Jessica with nary a Cadbury egg to her name.
