Guatemala-Sunday

Woke up on Sunday and had brunch at the hotel. It was SO GOOD (yes, I have to shout). Well, okay, most of it was pretty bad but the tamales were awesome. The rest of the Immanuel group flew in from Chicago and landed around 7. They picked us up just over 45 minutes later. We started off on the trip to Gualan.
Driving through Guatemala was really, really interesting. There was evidence of incredible poverty: houses everywhere were made with scrap metal. There was also a lot of measures to keep people out. Alot of the shops had bars over them. Many of the larger houses had high walls with electrified barbed wire or glass shards embedded at the top.
Outside of the city, we passed through mountains and fields. Lots of crops including watermelons, cantelopes and soemthing that we're defining as honeydews. There were also lots of cows but I couldn't get a good picture. I really wanted to bring one back because they were so different.
For lunch, we stopped in a small town that I can't remember the name of. There were fifteen of us to feed for lunch. Then the two people stationed as missionaries joined us, then the pastor and his family. This poor restaurant was not prepared for us and lunch ended up being about three hours. Luckily, they had quite a stash of the local beer, Gallo (The rooster) and that kept our group pretty happy.
When we got to Gualan, we stopped off at the hotel, which was gorgeous, and then headed off to see our projects. The first stop were the two houses where the doctor and the dentist were going to be working. This was out in Los Limones. It was on the outskirts of town. Fairly rural, houses spread further apart. There must have been some sort of signal because within fifteen minutes of our arrival a whole slew of kids appeared. It's not like you see a lot of white people in this town, it's not exactly a tourist location, so we were like a circus show. It was pretty interesting.
Apparently the land titles in this area are not really clear. The government has sort of let people take portions of land but they haven't said that the land belongs to the people or not for sure. So, more or less, these people are squatting, buliding houses, putting in electricity, trying to cobble a life together but with the knowledge that the government could come in at any time and take their houses away.

Guatemala-arrival

On Saturday morning I woke up and wandered around the gated community for awhile until Susan's grandma picked me up for breakfast. We went to a Cuban restaurant in a part of town that "my mother would kill her for bringing me to." It was delicious and Grandma Byrnes' friends were AWESOME. They've been going to this place for the last twenty years after their workout class.
She dropped me off at the Tampa airport, where I was sent to the body scanner but they let my half-full water bottle through. Whatever.
I met Jane and we chatted until it was time to get on the plane and we went to Miami. Had a nice dinner there. Then we got on the plane to leave the country. It took less time to get to Guatemala than it did to get from Denver to Tampa. We went to a fairly nice hotel and went to sleep. Well, tried to, the alarm in the room next door kept going off all night. Then, there were some... people... in the room next door. They were making noises... at 1 in the morning. Jane interpreted the noises as children screaming. My mind... went another route. Just saying... it was a little awkward the next morning when she wanted to confront two kids at the elevator but, Thank GOD, they got off on a floor other than ours.

Guatemala

I've been really remiss in recording what went on a couple of weeks ago when I went down to Guatemala. I left work on Thursday night and spent the night at the Holiday Inn in Belgrade. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Didn't have to drive at three o'clock in the morning (I had bumped a deer on that Tuesday, I think it lived and no damage to my car but still very startling) and it was going to cost upwards of $50 to park my car anyway so, what the heck? Yeah. The "heck" was the fact that the guy in the room above me had something going on with him so he was walking back and forth all frickin' night and kept flushing the toilet and the g-darn pipes were right behind my headboard. If I have to do this again, I'm requesting a room on the top floor. I didn't sleep very much and the one o'clock phone call from mother didn't help. At five I was on the bus to the airport. The flight from Bozeman to Denver was pretty good but the flight from Denver to Tampa was hell. The two kids in front of me were screechers and for three-plus hours their mother alternately yelled things like, "DO YOU WANT ME TO KILL YOU?" and "DO YOU WANT ME TO RIP OUT YOUR TONGUE?" and their father slept across the aisle. Blergh.
I was staying with my friend Susan in Tampa. Well, at her house anyway. She was gone and her roommate had to work so I was on my own. I ate some really good food at a French restaurant and, after going to one wrong gated community, finally found her house and went to sleep.

Wow

As I was lying (laying? Okay, okay, is there a direct object? No. And I am doing the action so it's definitely lying. Thanks Grammar Girl (December 17th, 2009 podcast)!) in Shavasana tonight, I thought about the coming year. The first half is definitely shaping up to be a little crazy.
End of January/beginning of February - Elderhostel at work.
End of February - more than likely going to be in Guatemala
March - milestone birthday for me!
April - hopefully going to the Poconos for Gran's 80th
May - Becca's getting married!
June - well, if all goes as planned, I'll be having a Very Odd June (Gardiner Fridays are going to be fun)
July - Laura's getting married!
After that, who knows?

New Year's Resolutions

I don't like resolutions. Mostly 'cause I can't keep them. So I'm not going to make any for the new year.
Okay, that's a lie. I'm going to shoot for the same things I've put on the list for the past few years "which are as follows and I quote"

• Try to be a nicer person (not working so far, but it's always worth a shot)
• Try to get out more (already working on this one-have organized a bar crawl on Friday. For all four bars in Gardiner. BTW, this does not include community projects. This means going out with friends, not hanging out and watching TV but actually going out.)
• Attempt to eat better and exercise more. (I actually like exercising, it's going to be the eating better that will be hard.
• Get better at saying "No" (Actually, doing really well on this one. May actually be going overboard)
  

Good luck to me and to everyone else that has goals for 2010. Let's go out and make it a good year people!

Thanksgiving-Part Two

But, yes, I was able to get quite a bit of goodness in me. All day long. It was wonderful. After Trudy's delectable appetizers, it was time to head home for some more Christmas movies. Thought I could play some Wii at Carrie's but ended up getting sucked into Holiday Inn. Have decided that the movie is long, racist, and much more charming in black and white.
Then, was the inevitable crunch time as I realized that I should have put the potatoes on "15 minutes ago" and hadn't even THOUGHT about the ham in awhile. But it all came together. Even with me distracting poor Allie from her hard work on getting some excellent gravy. Dinner was awesome. There was great conversation, some dancing to Mariah Carey and lots of people chipping in to help wash dishes. Just thinking about the day gives me a happy, sappy inside glow. Christmas, you're gonna have to work hard to stay my favorite holiday.
I forgot to include this picture in my last post. This is the planning that six of us sat down to figure out how we were going to feed 23 people in our tiny little houses. We were women with a wipey board and a plan. In my world view, we gave people options. The youngest person there was 24. if they were unhappy with the options given, they were darn well old enough to do something about it themselves. Why should the hostesses have to worry about more than what we had planned? This is what I have learned from years of eating with my mother and her friends. And you know what? They're right.
A view of my tablemates. You can't really see Jen or Josh, but they're there. Jen is behind the wine and Josh's hand is grasping his mug.
Trying to get a good brother/sister shot to send home to Mom and Grandma. This is about the best one. Thanks Mariah!

Thanksgiving-Part One

Oh my lands. This was the best Thanksgiving EVER! It's hard to beat this kind of day. It started at 6:45 when I stole Carrie's car and went up to get Michela (pictured at left, helping to get labels on the beer, another picture of said beer, best brew from Gardiner Gals Basement Brewing IMHO, is on the right and a little down from here. It's only missing Trudy, the one who stirs the beer with love, something I, apparently, am incapable of), one of the Italian interns in GIS. We came back down and people started filtering over to Carrie's for breakfast and the Macy's Day Parade. Have to be honest, the parade was not as good as usual. Better than last year, but still not great. It might help if they actually showed the parade. Seriously, no bands, no batons, just some silly balloons and lots of people promoting themselves and their shows. Doesn't make me enjoy the show. At least we didn't have to listen so some interminable prattle from two women about a vacation they had taken together like a billion years ago. The food, of course, was excellent. There were breakfast casseroles galore as well as brown-sugar covered bacon and mimosas. Yummers. At one point there were 15 people in Carrie's tiny little apartment.
At 1o, the parade ended and we were off to the annual Gardiner Turkey Trot. I think I talked about this in my blog from last year. Someone puts an ad in the Newsletter and people just show up to walk around the triangle formed by the park entrance, the border to Gardiner, and the employee road. Going around once is approximately equivalent to 1 mile. People show up, bring donations for the food pantry, and then proceed to walk for as long as they feel like. Michela, Allie (plus Ruffers), Mariah (plus Sadie), Emily (plus Callie) and I (plus Corso) all went to do the trot. Altogether, I think there were about 20-30 people there (I'm bad at estimating stuff like that). I only did the first three-quarters at which point, I warned Michela, who very nicely took over Corso duties for me, that he might slip free as his collar was loose, but not to worry because he knew where the house was and would go "home." I then made sure that Corso knew that I was leaving and showed him that Michela was on the other end of his leash and then scampered off to rugby. About three yards later, Corso indeed skipped out on the Trot and promptly went back to find Josh. Smart puppy. What did I know? I was enjoying myself down at the school. Plus, he made it safe so, whatever. Rugby, as always, was totally fun. There were about 16 people down there playing. I made a try (touchdown)! Granted I kind of sat down (you have to get the ball on the ground past the goal line to make a goal) but it totally counted. I also got beaned in the head. At least it was the back of my head and not my nose like happens with most balls of the sports variety. It was then back to the house. Emily, Mariah, Aaron, and Allie had started watching Love Actually since our house was the designated Christmas movie watching place. Josh was upstairs watching Die Hard. At least it fits in with the Christmas movie theme. Once I got cleaned up, it was a trip up to Trudy's where appetizers were set out to whet people's appetites/keep them from gnawing off their arms. There was a gigantic spread of olives, pizza, edamame, crackers, spreads and so much goodness it was hard to take in all at once. All that goodness! How could I get it in me?