Sticky hair and melted chocolate

As you know from my frequent posts about transportation, getting around Guatemala is a big preoccupation in my life.

The other day I took a bus into work for the first time in a long time and was reminded why I dislike it so much. After being jammed into a bus holding more than twice its capacity, I was feelingreally sick and claustrophobic. I was wedged between three guatemaltecos, all sporting slick gelled hair. As their heads repeatedly hit my arms that were holding on for dear life as we wove in and out of traffic, I became increasingly sticky, sick and disgusted. I’m ashamed to admit this, but as soon as the bus stopped I squeezed my way past the workers, students and grandmas on the bus, got off, and hailed a taxi. How non-hardcore is that.

Thank goodness for don Roberto. This sweet taxi driver met one of my coworkers when she was sick early this year and couldn’t drive, and since that day he has been the unofficial chauffer / friend of all in the office. I love chatting with taxi drivers in general, but don Roberto takes the cake. He always asks about my wedding (he brought Colin and I to the airport when he visited last month and knew about our engagement before Colin did), tells me about his family and teaches me about Guate.

For example, one day last week we left work early because the office was being fumigated (ha, there’s a story – originally scheduled to happen while we were all in the office) and he picked me up to take me back to Boca del Monte, where I live. We were driving down the road I always use to go home when we came upon a line of about twenty taxis parked along the road next to a gate. Don Roberto informed me that they’re there almost every day waiting for a flight containing all the deported Guatemalans from the US. Apparently it’s the back of the airport – who knew.

Well, the families and taxis waiting there knew, I guess.

Anyway, don Roberto and his friends who he sends when he can’t come pick us up make Guatemala so much friendlier. I love him. I think he likes us too – the other day he brought Jenny and me chocolates when he picked us up. I melted. They were a little melted too, but still delicious.

In other news, I had the privilege of meeting one of my faithful blog readers this weekend. My roommate’s mom is here to help with the wedding plans – I can hardly believe it’s already time! I’m pretty excited to meet the people that I’ve heard stories about over the past few months. So far everyone has lived up to my mental pictures of them – I like Jo’s mom just as much as I thought I would, if not more.

We spent the day yesterday in the lovely house in Antigua where Jo’s guests are staying for the wedding. It has high ceilings, a garden, the comfiest beds and a library – pretty much everything a house needs to qualify as perfect in my book. It also had a big table for us to work on the amazing wedding favors at. If you’re coming to this wedding, get excited about the colorful, awesome pieces of Australia you’ll find on your table.

Finally, I found my favorite Calvin College chapel song, finally - “Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go,” but the one that Sandra McCracken sings with the new tune on some album called “Indelible Grace.” I bought it on iTunes about an hour ago and have listened to it on repeat since then. The lyrics follow:

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

If you read this far into this post, congratulations. You qualify as a faithful blog reader and I hope to meet you someday, and, you just read some really awesome hymn lyrics.

In which my bad day turns into a good day.

Lately I've been throwing a lot of pity parties for myself. Things are changing: my roommate is getting married, I'm engaged, I'm moving, two of my favorite people in Guatemala are leaving this weekend to the United States with another one to follow shortly, and it's hard for me to deal with all of that at once. Life just started to settle into a routine and it's going to change significantly within the next month.

This morning at the breakfast to say goodbye to Meredith, one of the interns who is leaving this weekend, I teared up a little bit thinking about it. I treasured those tears, lanning to construct a really crabby day out of them. I came back to the office, sat at my desk and let myself get sad and nostaligic about missing graduation, saying goodbye to friends and not being around the people I love most and who love me back. It's been hard lately.

I was all set for another bad day. And then:

I got to talk to one of my dearest friends on gchat. It's been hit and miss communicating with him lately, as he's been finishing school and getting ready to start Teach For America next month. We had a lot of classes together over the past 3 years and I know no matter what he will always, always be there for me (and the conversation will be amazingly fun, as well). I'm hoping for a visit this fall.

As soon as I finished that conversation, Meredith came back from the grocery store with a beautiful hydrangea plant - my love plant. It's been sitting on my desk all day making me happy, both because of its brilliant blue color and because I LOVE that Mer brought it to me. I promise not to kill it.

To increase the loveliness of the day, I got an email from Jessica, two letters in the mail (both amazing, and one of TEN pages) and was able to chat with my prayer partner in DC on the phone.

Add one long conversation about faith with Jenny to that mix, carrot cake cupcakes, and the tearful day was turned upside down.

Warning: the following is a pretty boring recap of my recent activities. Read at your own risk.

In case I had forgotten how different my life in Guatemala is from normal life, today when I exited my downtown office on a mission to buy a coke, I literally ran into a goat. She and her flock were being herded down the street alongside the taxis.

Other than that little incident, everything has been quite calm. Last night Jo and I went to a bookstore to drink a smoothie and hot chocolate, respectively, and I gave in to the ever-present urge to buy one more book to add to my collection (in English, though, so there's a higher chance I'll actually read it). Work is work - I like it but it can get slow some days. Tomorrow starts wedding shower season for my roommate- three showers in three days, should be fun.

I find myself alone a lot lately, which actually quite suits my mildly antisocial self (INFJ, in case you were wondering). I've been using the time for some light wedding planning and a little bit of moping - I'm sad I'm not home to revel in the post-engagement excitement, and I miss my mom.

Colin told me I had to pull it together one particularly whiny day, so I decided to make blackberry scones - one of the best ideas I've had in a long time. I'm not sure if it was because I've been deprived of baked goods for so long that I forgot how delicious they are, or if the fresh blackberries we bought at the dark, mildy dirty and pretty damp market the other week were so fresh and wonderful, or if the recipe I googled was exceptionally well put together, but they were the best scones I've had in recent memory. I think I ate four within the first hour.

Ok, off to read that new Updike book I bought before getting my typical nine hours of sleep. This weekend promises to be excited and packed with possible blog entries. Hold your breath.

The West Wing

I have a faint recollection of my mom and dad watching the West Wing when I was younger – I remember watching parts of it with them occasionally, not understanding anything, but still thinking that Charlie was one of the cutest people I’d ever seen on TV.

I sort of forgot the show existed until last spring, when I was in DC at training week for my spring semester internship. There I met this Aussie girl, complete with vegemite (no joke) and a lovely demeanor. She was heading to Guatemala for a year and I thought she was so cool in her stylish brown suit and Sydney accent.

One of the things that made me think she was ridiculously cool was this thing she had going on with one of her friends who was living in a different country at the time. They both had Polaroid cameras, and as a way to keep in touch the took Polaroids and sent them to each other regularly along with descriptions of what the photos contained.

On one of the last days of training week, I happened to be around when this girl asked several people (including me) to pose at the front desk of the NGO we work for so someone could take a Polaroid of us for her to send to her friend. She told us to look very serious and important, because she wanted it to look like we were in The West Wing because she and her friend really liked that show.

So ever since then, the few times I’ve thought about that television show, I’ve thought of Jo.

These past few weeks, my lovely, vegemite-toting, Polaroid-taking Aussie roommate and I have been watching Season One of West Wing on her laptop in our apartment here in Guatemala. It has a sort of complete feeling to it, like the world really is ordered and things do all fit together eventually.

Maybe to make the experience really complete, we can take a Polaroid of us lazing around on her bed watching CJ, Sam and the team kick butt.

Guatemala, land of lovers?

My boss here in Guate always makes jokes about how his office breeds engagements. It's true: three out of the four long-term interns last year are now engaged or married, including my roommate who is currently downstairs doing her premarital counseling homework.

Maybe it's the water. Maybe it's the bugs. Maybe our brains are modified by the daily 5 a.m. birthday fireworks. But marriage is quite the epidemic here in Guate, and I've caught the fever.

Colin came down to visit me last week. We toured around Guatemala, stopping at waterfalls, caves, lakes and rivers. We also paid a visit to Tikal, ancient Mayan ruins (I looove climbing ruins) where, on top of a pyramid, I asked my best friend to marry me.

He said yes.