Volcán Pacaya

Saturday was a big day for us! It was the first of many adventures that us group of students decided to go on outside of the the one's included in our tuition: Climbing Volcán Pacaya! This trip is no longer 'required' by SAU because a few years the volcano erupted and some people died on the volcano. I made the mistake of telling my mother this before we left for the volcano--but hey, if I had to die young, dying on a volcano seems like a pretty good way to go!

We woke up at 5am and got ready to go and ate some cereal for breakfast. Because we don't have an address at Cindy's, we had told the shuttle to pick us up at Paul's house when we signed up and paid for the trip. He only lives like 10 minutes away so we walked there and then waited. When the shuttle picked us up, there was already an older couple inside. We thought we were then leaving Antigua, but we stopped again and picked up a family of four people! We were sitting pretty tightly in the bus. We found out that the family of four was from Costa Rica and were just visiting Guatemala for vacation! The mom was from Canada and her husband was from Costa Rica, and their 2 kids were a mix, I guess. They were all fluent in English and Spanish, except for the husband who didn't know English.

The drive to where we started climbing Pacaya was about an hour long. The roads were so twisty-turny and the driver drove SO fast, we all felt really sick. We were happy to get out when we arrived. When we exited the van, we were surrounded by kids offering us walking sticks and horse rides for the hike. The family and older couple bought some sticks, but we didn't really want to use any, and we hadn't really brought a lot of money because we didn't want to carry it around. However, upon arriving, we discovered that the money we paid when we signed up for the trip earlier did not in fact cover the hike like we were told, and so we had to scrounge up 50Q (about 8$) each. Some of the girls had brought more money and we were able to pay for 6/7 people in the group. I was the one who didn't have money, but Karen, the mom of the family, was nice enough to pay for me.

We started the hike and the first part was just walking up a steep incline on cement rocks. It was really funny because I thought the boys/men with horses would stay at the bottom, but they all grabbed their horses and followed right behind us! We hiked up and eventually the path turned to dirt, but it was still pretty steep. However, I was happy to find that my legs were not sore at all, like I worried they might be. I felt great! About 15 minutes into the walk, one of our girls decided to get a horse but we didn't have any money. Thankfully, the mom was kind enough to give us 100Q (13$) for a horse! She was so generous!

I can't believe the horses climb all the way up; the trails are so small and so steep, I felt bad that they all clomped along behind us! It kind of felt like they rode so closely behind us to keep us moving forward at a decent speed. I talked to one guy about how many times he brought a horse up for people to use (in Spanish!) and he said usually 2 times a day, 3-4 times a week. It's incredible!

The higher we got, the steeper it got. Again, I am so thankful that God gave me strength that day, because I really haven't worked out at all this semester (oops) but my body felt completely fine! 2 days ago we went to a Zumba class that was more like a Crossfit class and super tough, and so I was pretty sore today, but the only thing that was uncomfortable was my lungs because of the crazy change in altitude. But that, I could push out of my mind and carry on. Eventually one of our other girls needed a horse, and the mom paid for us again. She really was super kind. 

Half of the horse-boys turned back at a certain point, but the two carrying the girls and a few others stuck with us the whole time. We finally reached the top, and it was so cool. It was completely foggy. We couldn't see anything beyond the black rock we stood on. It was super eerie to look out and literally only see white fog, considering how high we were. We knew that something was out there, but it was honestly just a thick blanket of fog that obscured our view completely. We were a bit disappointed that we couldn't see what we knew must be an awesome view from the top. We hung out on the black 'flat' of rock for a bit. The horse people left then, because 100Q only covered the way up, and then we had to maneuver our way down a SUPER steep path a ways to get to our next point. We were falling left and right, but luckily it was mostly sand so it didn't hurt, except the first girl that got the horse scraped her leg really bad and had blood pouring down her leg. We didn't have band-aids so she had to leave it like that. However, she was laughing with us and seemed to be fine. 

When we got to the bottom at our next point, we were at the very foot of the actual 'top' of the volcano, (the part that erupts) but we couldn't really see it because of the fog. It was really cold and windy where we were. We hiked over more black 'lava stones' to this little shack called the Lava Store. Everything in it was made from lava stone. It was incredible that there was actually a store at the foot of the volcano! They said after the volcano erupted last (when those people died) they had to rebuild in a different but still close place because it had been destroyed.

After looking around the little shack, we hiked over more black rock to this area where there were these little pockets in the rock with hot, hot air coming out. This is where we roasted our marshmallows! It was super fun, and my mallow actually got cooked, like it turned brown! It was really crazy, but fun to say that I have now cooked a marshmallow over 'lava', or at least the heat from it. 

As we were down there, the fog started to go away and we could see the top of the volcano! It was crazy how close we were to the top. 

We hung out there for a bit and then had to climb back up that super steep path. This was the only part that made my legs hurt, but I knew it wasn't a long path and I was able to just move quickly. When I reached the top, back to that flat rock area, we saw that the fog had disappeared and we could finally see the view. It was incredible, and so worth the journey! We stayed there for a while, taking pictures and just admiring. It was an awesome experience. 

My mom had a really awesome thought about this experience.

"This is a pretty cool analogy for the situations we can find ourselves in, where we can't see outside of our own little spheres. We can feel lonely and disappointed and hopeless. And then the fog clears and we see what was there all along. God is amazing!!"

We then made the trek back down the volcano. This was interesting because it was hard to keep from going too quickly and then falling down the steep slope. We were all kind of sliding and shrieking as we almost fell. I did a lot of those 'foot slide, arms shoot up in surprise' moves when I slipped, so I told everyone they were my dance moves that I had to practice for an upcoming play I was in, ha. I ALMOST made it the whole way without actually falling, but once we hit that cement my foot slipped and I landed on my butt. I scraped my arm but it wasn't bad at all.

When we got to the bottom, we had to wait for our bus driver, so I sat with the older couple we had traveled with and talked to them. Turns out they are from Switzerland, and in Latin America for a 30 day vacation experience! The husband understood better english than the wife but they still struggled to communicate. It was really cool to talk to them though, just because they said they really wanted to get better at their English and I always forget that I shouldn't just assume everyone knows English. 

The bus ride back was not enjoyable because of all the twists and turns, but we made it back around 1pm and after washing our very dirty feet, we all collapsed into bed. However, lunch was ready soon, so we ate and then had to get our ballots to the people who were taking them back to the U.S. for us before they closed so we had to walk back into town. We felt so adult-ish having to figure out this whole absentee ballot situation, especially considering the fact that there is currently no postal service in Antigua! We also had to pay back the family after turning in the ballots, but it was nice to be able to see them one more time, thank them for their generosity, and say goodbye!

In the park, there was a big market so we got fro-yo and sat to watch the activity for a bit. It was really nice until a bird pooped on my head! The girls got a kick out of that. 

After we got back, I showered and then got in bed and didn't move until dinner. 

The day was an amazing experience. It challenged our bodies and our minds and was another incredible moment of experiencing just a bit more of the beauty God has created for us!

-Kara

Such an amazing contrast between green plants and then black volcano rock!

The lava store!

Eerie!

I really like this attempted picture

First Weekend Away (and 1 month into our Semester!)

Throughout our semester we have a lot of free weekends but also weekends where we spend time outside of Antigua with our professor and group of students (which is only 7 kids, and I love having such a small group!) This weekend we went to Guatemala City! We were all super excited to get away from Antigua for a little while, even though we love the town and call it home now. We couldn't wait to experience something new!

On Friday after an awesome, chill day of class full of games and fun conversations, we all piled into a van with our professor Paul and his assistant Libby and we headed to Guatemala City! It's about 45 minutes away from Antigua, depending on how fast you drive.

Our first stop was the National Palace. Among other things, it is famous to our professor for never being open on the days when he wants to take his students through. He said that usually, they plan to go on a tour at one of their set times, but then the tour gets cancelled for one reason or another. We arrived being skeptical, but were told there was a tour of the Palace at 2pm, so we went to McDonald's for a quick lunch. We also had time to walk through the market, and wow was it huge! It just kept going! If I hadn't been with my friends, I would have probably been lost forever.

At 2pm we showed up to the National Palace, and were told that the building was closed due to some government function. Ha. We laughed and left, heading to our hotel. We arrived at the Best Western where we would be spending our weekend. We were probably a ridiculous amount of excited to be in a hotel when we arrived. The place was super nice and upon arriving we discovered that every 2 people got their own room, and we each got our own queen-sized bed! Now, Cindy (my host mom)'s house is really nice and we love it there, but it's definitely a different living situation than we are used to. We felt so pampered in the hotel, and I think that's really good that we did. I realized that I'm really used to vacations and hotels back home--not that we always go on trips, but I have stayed in plenty of hotels before, and I realize now that I take them for granted, when a lot of people do not get the luxury of staying in a hotel. But living in such a different world here, and realizing this is what most of the world is actually like, is really important to understand, and I wish I did get more excited to go to hotels, and not take them for granted so much.

We relaxed in our rooms for a bit and then at 6pm went to dinner at San Martin, this really nice restaurant that we've actually been to in Antigua as well. I got a Balsamic Pizza, and it was super good!! It's always fun to eat out as a group because we go to nicer restaurants and its just always a fun change of scenery. After dinner we walked to this really nice bookstore and Paul also bought us gelato! It was a really fun night. When we got back to our hotel, we met in a conference room to talk about our semester so far. Because we rented the room, food was also provided so people kept bringing us food even though we were stuffed! We then met in Libby's room to watch this documentary called Living on One Dollar (its on Netflix, check it out!) about these two boys who go to Guatemala to live in poverty like so many people in this country do. It was so interesting and a really good movie to watch!

Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast in the hotel. One of my favorite things is hotels that provide breakfast--it just makes me so happy, so it was a good way to wake up. After this we went back to the National Palace to check on tours again. There was a tour at 10am, but it was only 9:30am so we decided to wait at the palace instead of leaving. While we waited, Leslie and I went across the street to this big park that was basically just a big expanse of cement with a big fountain in the middle. There were a lot of people walking around and a man selling bird seed. There were pigeons everywhere, and after chasing them around for a while I decided that I wanted to catch one. The man selling birdseed was really nice and gave me a lot without making me pay for it (I think because my pigeon-catching attempts were so pathetic and he wanted me to catch one) but I just could not do it! At one point this guy came over with his daughter and just snatched one up from the ground and so I got to pet it but I was really frustrated that they would not stay still enough for me to catch one! I attempted many times but never succeeded, but there were people around that were very encouraging and I felt like I bonded a bit with these strangers as they supported my attempts. At 10am we were told that the person who sells tickets for the tours was not around today, so we did not get to tour the Palace. Instead, we went to this park that had this 3D map of Guatemala. You could walk around it and see all the mountains and volcano's and bodies of water and it was very neat!

At noon we headed to the zoo in Guatemala City! We ate at Pollo Campero for lunch and then headed in to see the animals. It was really neat because the zoo was set up in a way that showed there was an obvious attempt to make the exhibits look as natural as possible, so it felt more like we were in the wild than in the zoo's in the U.S. We saw a lot of normal exhibits, like lions and tigers, and then some exhibits with animals only found in central america. It was very cool! At one point we went into this big 'bird cage' that had a bunch of trees in it where birds just flew around and you could look at them up close, and randomly two lemurs hopped out from the trees and just walked around the exhibit with the other guests! One girl was able to sit next to one and pet it. It was very wild!

After the zoo we headed back to the hotel to relax. At 4:50pm, we went to Oakland mall, this surprisingly enormous and very glamorous mall in the city, for dinner. The mall had at least 5 stories and was such a shocking change from the rest of the city. We ate in this really cool restaurant that had a huge aquarium in it. We sat right by it so throughout our meal we got to watch sharks and a huge eel swim around us! At 6:30pm, we headed to the VIP theater in the mall to watch Deep Water Horizon, the new movie about the BP oil spill. The theater was set up with really nice arm chairs that reclined. When we sat down, waiters came to take our orders from the menus they provided! I ended up ordering chocolate cake and a cappuccino, and just as the movie was starting they brought it out to me, and I got to enjoy the movie with dessert and coffee. It was awesome! And the movie was great, I totally recommend it. When I heard about the oil spill when it happened, all I heard was about all the fish that died and how terrible the company was for allowing so much oil to get into our water. What I didn't know was how many people lost their lives because of this accident, and this movie told the story so well, and it's a story I think more people should know about! After the movie we headed back and went to bed.

Sunday morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and said goodbye to our hotel. We then drove 45 minutes to Casa de Dios, this huge megachurch that holds about 20,000 people! We got headsets when we got in so we could hear the translator, but after the amazing worship part of the service, when the translator began speaking, I knew there was no way I could sit through a service listening to her. She was very behind and missed a lot of what the pastor said! So instead I enjoyed listening to the pastor speak in Spanish and got to practice my listening skills. The service was 3 hours long! But it was really fun. After church we went to a restaurant that I cannot remember the name of and I ate some really good enchiladas.

We got back home around 3pm and napped and then did homework. That night we watched the cringe-worthy debate and then headed to bed, ready for week 5 of Spanish class!!

-Kara

P.s. Surprise! I dyed my hair blonde too!

Getting gelato in Guatemala City

The zoo!

Those who know me know I LOVED this exhibit

The National Palace. Still not sure about the inside, but its pretty on the outside!

Balsamic Pizza

Map of Guatemala

The mall! And a white Scarlett Johansson

The restaurant (That whole yellow thing is the eel!)

Casa de Dios

Experience Guatemala

Thursday was a very long day, but a very good day. I apologize for not writing for a few weeks (weeks! This trip is flying by!) but that just means I've gotten into a comfortable schedule and am having too much fun to write! So yay.

Thursday our schedule changed because we had a 'field trip' with our school, Cambio Spanish School. Before I explain our trip, I need to explain the amazing things that Cambio schools are doing:

Niños de Guatemala is an organization created to provide education for children who cannot afford it. Although school here is free, many families cannot afford the small things like uniforms or school supplies. This organization interviews families and provides them with education at one of their few schools in Guatemala, giving them an opportunity to see a future for themselves whereas for many people in Guatemala who do not have this opportunity, they lack a vision of what their lives could look like if only they received the proper education. Not only does this organization provide education, but it also provides counseling opportunities for families. The school has social workers and psychologists that work to gain the support of parents for their child's schooling, and if there are problems at home the social worker eagerly works to end those struggles. The schools hire mothers and fathers of the children to work as cooks or assist in other activities, in order to show the parents the value of their child's education. What stood out to me the most about this organization was that it really works to gain a better family bonding and stronger community. Trust is established with the families and the child's education is not the sole priority--the child's life, their relationship with the parents and vice versa, is what is focused on, and that is incredible.

Cambio Spanish School provides language courses for other students, like myself. A big chunk of the money we pay to take these courses goes to sending children to the schools built by the organization. How cool is that?? By studying at Cambio, we are helping children to receive an education, something I recognize more and more every day as extremely valuable.

Thursday was a long day because we took an 'Experience Guatemala' tour, where our first stop was in Ciudad Vieja at one of the schools created by Niños de Guatemala. We got the chance to play with kids and learn more about the vision for the schools to soon be self-sustaining. It was also really cool to hear about the social workers part in the whole process of providing education and to see what that looked like abroad.

Our second stop was to a coffin factory. When we were told about this part of the trip, I actually thought our director said Coffee factory, so when we arrived I was pretty surprised. It wasn't so much a factory as it was the backyard of a man who made absolutely beautiful coffins. He takes special requests from people in Guatemala City and then creates coffins from scratch, and we learned all about the process. It was a really unique part of the trip, but so much fun to learn about!

Our final stop was to a Chicken Bus factory. For those of you who don't know what a Chicken Bus is, imagine a school bus painted bright colors with fun designs and bright lights. Chicken Bus companies bid on old U.S. school buses and then travel to the U.S. to pick them up and bring them back to Guatemala. They are then cut in half, completely stripped on the inside, and put back together with different materials. They are painted bright colors and a new, bigger engine is installed. The buses are cut so as to be better on the roads in Guatemala, because it is really dangerous to drive such a big vehicle on the roads here. Chicken Buses are a very cheap form of public transportation. There are a few 'stops', but mostly the drivers and the 'picker' that rides with them looks for a group of people looking for a ride and then ushers them on the bus. The bus pulls away the minute the people are on the bus, even before they are seated, to get to the next group of people. It is a big competition between buses because the workers get paid based on how many people they transport. We actually rode a Chicken Bus into Ciudad Vieja and it was a really fun experience! The aisles of the buses are very small because the buses are cut, but it was exciting to drive around so fast, pulling off to the side randomly to pick up more passengers. The factory was really interesting because we got to see the process of how the buses are created. If you ever visit Antigua (or tons of other cities in Guatemala) you will see dozens of Chicken Buses everywhere you go. I think three just passed my window in the time it took to write this paragraph. It is another exciting part of this beautiful country!

After our tour we headed back to school, where we had our normal four hours of class, but from 1pm-5pm. My brain was already fried after such a full morning but my incredible teacher worked with me and we ended up having a really good afternoon of speaking in Spanish!

After class, the tutors and students set up the classroom so that we could give our Spanish presentations. Last week, we were told that we had to give a Spanish presentation in order to show what we had learned in the past three weeks. This was in accordance to SAU's regulations on our learning here in Guatemala. While I am not a fan of the fact that SAU is handing out packets on what we are supposed to be learning here (when the reason I am studying here is because I didn't learn any Spanish in my classes at SAU), we of course complied and wrote out our presentations--and it actually felt pretty rewarding to present them! I was really proud of myself for being able to give a 10 minute presentation in complete Spanish, discussing statistics and sharing details about a pretty complex topic. At SAU, I would never have been able to do that unless I was reading from a paper. Here, I was able to give my entire presentation with only a few note cards to remind me of some complicated vocabulary. It was a rewarding exercise! After presentations, we celebrated at Pappy's Barbecue by eating hamburgers and french fries.

The day was eye-opening and rewarding and I am so glad we got to "experience Guatemala." There are so many things about this beautiful country that continues to surprise me, both in good ways and bad. I wish the issues that the people of Guatemala deal with were more well known to others who have the means to help make a difference. If you are interested in supporting Niños de Guatemala by donating or sponsoring a child, check out the website below!

http://ninosdeguatemala.org/app/webroot/

Me with a Chicken Bus

Inside the Chicken Bus factory

View from the school!

One of the schools we visited

Ciudad Vieja

Learning how to make coffin's

We weren't allowed to walk any farther than this location because it is unsafe, but up the volcano live most of the poor Guatemalans, and the kids that attend Cambio's schools come from these homes. They usually have to walk about 45 minutes to school. There is no trash system, so the people will usually walk down the volcano and dump their trash here, or alongside the road.

The path that leads up the volcano

Inside one of the Chicken Buses before it is restored

At our school, giving presentations!