Note to readers...

Somehow, in the process of switching this blog between google accounts, I lost all of the photos. I plan on re-posting them all eventually. Thanks for reading!

Peace out,
KC

Peace out

How do you end a blog? On purpose, that is. I know plenty of people who just stopped posting, usually because they got bored, or too busy, or ran out of ideas. But that's not the case here. I suppose I could do some kind of list of my favorite entries, but that seems a little self-indulgent, and being that this blog has been almost exclusively about my life for the last two-plus years, I think I've about run the gamut on self-indulgence.

So I guess I just end it by saying I'm ending it. I have started a new blog called The Peach at peachingtothechoir.blogspot.com. If you're interested in following, please do. I just figured now that I have a job and have moved out of my parents' house, it's pretty safe to say my life in the U.S. has officially re-started, so it doesn't really make sense to keep posting on a site whose address is www.kristinainguate.blogspot.com.

I haven't decided on a totally cohesive theme yet for the new blog. I suppose it will take shape as I post. I'm trying to stay away from the T.V./movie review format (although I am in the midst of compiling a favorite albums list), and now that I'm back living in the United States like the majority of my readers, I feel like regular, first-person reports from my daily life will get pretty boring pretty quick. For the time being I see it being a compilation of random musings, but I promise to do my best to make it timely, relevant and at least occasionally entertaining.

In any case, thanks for following me on my Peace Corps journey, transition and all. It was one hell of a ride that I imagine will shape the rest of my life. I hope it gave you an informative and heart-felt glimpse into a different world. I'll miss being that girl you know who lives in Guatemala, but you know what they say about good things. Now it's time to become that girl you know who does something else.

Peace out,
Kristina

Maxin' and relaxin' and actin' all cool (the conclusion)

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Sing-a-long

These next two videos are from one of my last days in Guatemala. The teachers from my school in Taj Buxup took me on a day trip out to a small nearby lake called La Laguna Candelaria for some hiking, a picnic and, as you’ll see, a private concert (see Projects and more despedidas, April 17, 2010). The teacher singing is Profe Amilcar and is a member of a group called Los Viajeros. He even has a popular duet that plays on the local radio station. In the first clip he is singing in the local Mayan language of Popti’. The second one is in Spanish.

Dance, dance!

And finally, here we have my friends and me being ridiculous, trying to entertain ourselves, probably on another exciting Friday night. We were inspired by the “Forever” wedding procession. And yes, these are sober antics (well, mostly).

So there you have it: my life in Guatemala in 26 clips of two minutes or less. It’s certainly not the whole picture, but my hope is that it gave those who are interested, a taste of what life was like for me during the more than two years I spent there. I know I’ve spent quite a few posts on this, but I figured this was the more humane alternative to inviting you all over and making you sit through a two-hour slideshow. Questions, comments, observations? Let me know what you think.

Peace out,
Kristina

Maxin' and relaxin' and actin' all cool (continued)

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Angelito sings a song
Profe Juan was one of the teachers who worked at my small school in Taj Buxup and also one of my good friends in town. He's a huge promoter of Healthy Schools and supporter/befriender of Peace Corps Volunteers. This next clip is of his youngest son, Juan Angel, singing the theme song from his favorite T.V. show, Discovery Kids.

Cute kids
Maybe my closest Jakalteca friend was Maria Ros. She and her family were extremely welcoming to me from almost the very start of my service. I celebrated birthdays and holidays with them and ate at their house at least once a week. This next video is of her  nephew, Mario José, who loves to dance. (I use freeware. There's a watermark. Ignore it.)

And here's one of Mario and his cousin Nicol Valesca playing and just generally being cute in the house Maria is in the process of building.

Friday night festivities

In case you've ever wondered what I did for fun on a Friday night in Jacal, the answer is: ping pong, of course. At the end of this clip, Juan Jo gloats about beating me for the first (and only ... :) time. (It was before I was able to sit him down for his first English grammar lesson.)

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Maxin' and relaxin' and actin' all cool

We've now arrived at the "fun" category of clips. The next three posts will be filled with videos of me hanging out with friends and colleagues throughout the course of my service. It's a random sampling, but I hope it gives some idea of what we did to relax and have fun.

Rodrigo shows off his toys

What follows was shot on my very first day living with my host family in Pastores. I had been in Guatemala less than 72 hours, if I'm not mistaken, so my Spanish was still a bit shaky. I'm trying to ask my little host brother, Rodrigo, to show me his toys. He eventually gets the idea, but is more interested in using the camera himself.

Feliz cumple!

This next one's pretty easy to follow, even if you don't speak Spanish. Turns out birthday clowns are equally hilarious and/or terrifying -- depending on your own personal feelings on the subject -- in any language. This was a party for my host mother's neice toward the end of my training. As before, just ignore the "MyVideoConverter" watermark. (Although, I will give them a plug here since I've had so much success using the free version of their software. It's very user friendly for novice media editors such as myself. So if you're into that kind of thing, check it out.)

Nobody rocks a party...

like Pan Dulce rocks a party! The last video in this post is of Pan Dulce's debut performance at the Peace Corps Guatemala 2008 Fourth of July party. Pan Dulce was a rap group formed by several members of my training group that wrote songs based on our unique Peace Corps experiences. The song is in English but you may find that many of the jokes don't translate if you're not a Guatemalan Peace Corps Volunteer (or at least a Latin American PCV). Still, it's a jammin' song (called "Chicharron") and I think you'll enjoy it anyway. It's a bit difficult to hear, but see if you can pick out my two favorite lines: "Call me Pan Dulce, I'm that sweet//But I still get dirty like food on the street" and "Just one look and the chavas go nuts//Ayudantes pay me when I ride the bus." Parental advisory: one explicit lyric.

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La cultura chapina (continued)

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"... And world peace"

In Guatemala, beauty pageants -- for lack of a better phrase (as far as I know, they are not scholarship programs) -- are a common form of entertainment. They are organized for almost every town fair and in each town for the Guatemalan Independence Day. In my town, they always made an effort to incorporate both the indigenous and ladino cultures into the pageants. For example, the girls would be judged on a speech given in the native Mayan language, as well as on a speech given in Spanish. They would model traditional indigenous wear, as well as modern sports wear (e.g. a tennis or gymnastics uniform). The clip below is of a girl in one of the villages where I worked, wearing Jacal’s customary traje, while the emcee explains her outfit, that of her escort and talks about local traditions.

Pushing the arts
I have many, many complaints about the Guatemalan primary education system, but there is one area in which I believe they excel, and that is in the promotion of the arts. Every year, there are district-wide competitions for singing and dancing, arts and crafts, drawing, poetic recitation and more. And while it made for more days of cancelled classes, I was always blown away by the importance placed on cultivating the arts. This next video shows another one of my favorites (shhh!) competing in the first round of the first competition I attended. It’s a little tough to hear him over the all the students talking, but it gets better toward the middle.

Feliz Navidad

Finally, we have a video of a posada in which I walked during my first Christmas season in Guatemala. Large groups of mostly women and children walk the streets singing Christmas carols and carrying small floats of the Holy Family during the nine days before Christmas to re-enact Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. The float ends up at a different house each night, where the whole group is treated to ponche (a delicious fruit cider) and something to eat.

Up next: just some random videos of me hanging out with friends.

Peace out,

Kristina

La cultura chapina

Part three of this series will feature videos that all have something to do with the culture in Guatemala or specifically in my town of Jacaltenango.

Mayan meditation

The following clips depict a Mayan ceremony that we attended toward the end of training. It was to celebrate the sacred Mayan calendar and Mother Nature. The clips are somewhat uneventful, as I didn't capture much of the priest's explanation of the ceremony, but it was very cool to be a part of it. To top it off, it took place in the middle of ruins that at one point served as the seat of Mayan power in Guatemala. Again, you can ignore the watermarks on all of these videos. It's just there because I used the trial version of some video converter software to shorten the clips.

Día del Cariño

Some have you may have picked up from reading previous posts that Guatemalans are a fun-loving people always looking for a reason to celebrate. There are easily five ferriados (holidays) a month. Some of the big ones are Día del Maestro (Day of the Teacher), Día de la Madre (Mother's Day), each town's feast day, and September 15, the Guatemalan Independence. These celebrations often end up lasting a week or longer and include lots of food, family parties, marimba bands and parades. The next video shows footage of my training host family's Valentine's Day party (see Figuring it out, Feb. 21, 2008). It was really interesting for me to see what a huge deal was made out of a day that in the United States is generally reserved for quiet, romantic celebrations between couples.

Eating ants

Here's where I prove that I wasn't lying when I wrote about eating roasted ants in Travels and more misadventures, July 23, 2008. Jokox are a traditional seasonal snack in Jacal gathered and eaten every year around May when the rains start and force the ants out from underground. Depending on how plentiful they are, a pound can go for up to Q100 ($12).

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