San Pedro de la Laguna

July 19, Monday
Oh my goodness guys, I am SO EXCITED!!! My host family in San Pedro, Atitlán is SUPER awesome!!!
Ok, so our day began less than well – we all had to say goodbye to each other before we left for our different service locations, and that kind of sucked, because it was like a prequel of the goodbye that we would have to say at the end of the summer. Then about half the group piled into the van (no sitting four-across this time!) and drove to the bus station, where we got on a “chicken bus” (reincarnated Blue Bird) for a four hour, extremely bumpy, I-had-to-go-to-the-bathroom-the-entire-time, very uncomfortable trip. It was pouring down rain when we arrived in Santiago, and we promptly disembarked into an ankle-deep puddle. Then we needed to get down to the docks for a “lancha” (ferry) ride to the other side of the lake. So Alisha and I took a tuk-tuk (taxi sort of thing) for Q20, and Menan and Brittany took one for Q6. Guess who just got ripped off? When we arrived at the docks, the next lancha to San Pedro was chock-full of people. The pilot kept trying to get us to ride, saying that there was room, but there certainly wasn’t, not for four gringas and their bags. So we waited for an hour and a half for the next one. They charged us Q20 each. The indigenous ladies looked scandalized when the pilot told us that, but we couldn’t really argue – what choice did we have? The lake is miles and miles wide, and none of us are great swimmers.
We arrived in San Pedro and waited in a little restaurant for someone from the clinic to show up and claim us, which eventually, they did. They took us to our houses, introduced us a bit, and then left. I was super terrified – what if I got a weird family? But they are so nice! They’re indigenous Tz’utujuil, so their Spanish is SO much easier to understand, since they learned it as a second language, same as I. Makes me feel like I’m absolutely AWESOME at Spanish, like my ability to communicate has risen exponentially in the last 36 hours. The mother, Maria, hangs out at home (and sews stuff with a TREADLE machine! How cool is that?!) and the father is a pastor (not Pentecostal, I hope. Had enough of that). They have three children – Manuela (She is married, with a little 3-year-old boy, Mofito (?)), Sarah (23 and awesome, studying piano on the weekends), and Domingo (15 days older than me. So far, he hangs out and watches CNN in Spanish. Better than Fox, I guess. He’s also just graduated as a music teacher. They don’t waste time here). Sarah and I went up to the second story, and they have the most incredible view of the lake ever. They’re on a bit of a hill at the back of town, so we could see the majority of the town. We talked up there for 20 minutes or so, and then walked around town for about an hour. She took me to the clinic, which is in a church basement, and then we went to the very top of the belfry (except there isn’t a bell. I don’t know what you call it, then), from which we could see an AMAZING panorama of practically the entire lake, surrounded by 3 volcanoes, a jillion mountains, and clouds EVERYWHERE. It is so beautiful here, just gorgeous.
Supper was great – Manuela came by with her son, and everyone was there except for Domingo. The first question Manuela asked me, after my name, was “How do you like the Arizona law?” Haha. Awesome. My Spanish vocabulary is not adequately advanced to be able to express just exactly what I thought about the law. They talked at great length about violence and such at supper, half in Tz’utujuil, half in Spanish, oftentimes switching languages mid-sentence. I’m not sure if they did it on purpose or not, but it sure was funny. I felt kind of bad, about to burst out laughing as they talked about all the horrible things that are happening in the city. They also taught me a few words in Tz’utujuil. Turns out that “moon,” “sun,” and “chili” sound exactly the same. They don’t think so, but I certainly do.
Their house is nice, too. I wasn’t really afraid of roughing it – pit toilet, bucket shower, whatever, I can deal for 3.5 weeks – but I am definitely not roughing it here. I have my own room, with my own bathroom (!!!!!) and HOT WATER!!!!! And there is no parrot here. Thank God. And they make their own tortillas here, how awesome is that? Suffice it to say, I am very, very happy with my current situation.
We’ll be visiting the clinic tomorrow. I have no idea what I’ll be doing, but I hope it involves scrubs, because I’d rather not have bought them for nothing. Plus, scrubs are just cool, though they lend a bit of an androgynous air to the wearer.




July 20, 2010
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I watched a birth today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was crazy. A lot more blood than I had expected. The response of my treacherous body was to start sweating a lot and get light-headed, gosh darn-it. But I saw the most important parts, and that’s all that matters. I’ve also seen more vaginas today than I ever have in my life.
My work at the clinic started today. There are two doctors, husband-wife duo, that work there – one is a Gynecologist, one is a General Practitioner. They’re both from Spain, so they have that sort of lispy, spitty Spanish. I’m working with the gynae for now, and he is super cool. He takes the time to explain the cases to me afterwards, and is really great with the patients. We started at 9 or so, and finished up at almost 2. Alisha and I spent a good half hour wandering around San Pedro, looking for a place to eat. After we found one, we took a tuk-tuk to San Juan, a 10 minute drive away, and spent another 20 minutes looking for the doctor’s office there. Then we met the other two girls, and got everything straightened out. After we arrived at the office, we were told that there was nothing to do there at the moment, but we’re having a meeting with some schoolchildren, want to come? We didn’t have any better ideas, so we took another tuk-tuk BACK to San Pedro. We visited a school and talked to 8 children, ages 13-17 or so about sexuality. Whole-body sexuality, what makes a person who they are, not just the private bits. The kids were so great, very mature about the whole thing. We were VERY impressed. Sounds like this will be more or less the norm – clinic in the morning, office in the afternoon.
Sarah and I went to a church service in the evening. There was a lot of singing at the beginning (the louder, the better!), then a message, in which the pastor would say something, and then translate it into Tz’utujil, which made the service really hard to follow, because there’s still a couple seconds of disconnect in my brain following a change in language. Then we prayed for about 20 minutes, corporate prayer, which is really interesting to listen to.
On the way home, Sarah and I talked about the Tz’utujil in San Pedro. The entire town (13,000) is indigenous, with the exception of 100 or so tourists at any given time. The vast majority speak Tz’utujil and Spanish, with only the very oldest speaking only Tz’utujil, and only the very youngest children (younger than 6) speaking only Spanish. Quite a few also speak English out of necessity, due to the large number of tourists here.